Just over a day before Saturday's first matches in the football allsvenskan, the police came with their message to cancel the new requirement to stop matches in case of organized masking for the next round.
We feel that the anchoring regarding this condition has not worked fully well, as we had wished, says Marie Borg, deputy head of the police's National Operational Department (Noa), to TT.
Borg believes that the police have worked together with the clubs during the year to improve the security aspects related to the masking ban.
And we have waited for them to take responsibility for the issue. We have not quite seen the development and therefore the conditions, says Borg.
"Not time-critical"
Many actors in football have believed that the potential consequences of the new condition are not in proportion to how big the problem actually is.
We have looked at what is required to be able to handle this. Since we have not received any concrete measures from the clubs, we have seen ourselves forced to move forward. But if you take such measures, it needs to be anchored. There we see that it could have gone better. We are making a restart. This is not time-critical, says Marie Borg.
Why does it then come with such short notice?
The work has been going on since January 2025 in different parts. Somewhere it has to start, says Borg.
The message that the police are backing down was received with joy by Jens T Andersson, chairman of the interest organization Sef, which gathers the 32 men's elite clubs in allsvenskan and superettan.
I think it's good and insightful from the police's side, he says.
When it was revealed just over two weeks ago that the police had made a decision on a new condition requirement, it came like a bolt from the blue for football's actors.
"The large mass is affected"
We do not want masking and disorder on our stands either. What we have reacted to is that we previously had a dialogue and cooperation with all parties in football on how we will deal with the challenges we have. It was not like that now, says Jens T Andersson.
Sef still does not want to see any new condition at all in the police's event permit. What the police wanted to implement risks leading to "both polarizing and radicalizing the stands", the organization wrote earlier in the week.
We believe it will have exactly the opposite effect. This will not reduce the disorder, says Jens T Andersson and continues:
The large mass is affected by such a condition and not the individual individuals who are responsible for the disorder.
Football Sweden reacted strongly to the police wanting to introduce a new condition requirement for the arrangement of matches in allsvenskan and superettan, which TV4 Football Channel revealed just over two weeks ago.
The police wanted to introduce a condition that in case of organized masking in the stand, the match should be interrupted and the game can only be resumed when the masking stops. The match may have to be played to empty stands.
Stockholm clubs AIK, Hammarby, and Djurgården appealed in a joint statement to the police not to introduce the requirement in future event permits.
Clubs like Malmö FF, IFK Norrköping, IFK Göteborg, Elfsborg, Gais, Örgryte, and Häcken also made statements. The Swedish Football Supporters Union (SFSU) was also critical, as was the elite clubs' interest organization Swedish Elite Football (Sef).
Football's actors have stated that the police made their decision without any cooperation and dialogue. It has also been emphasized that the condition is a deviation from the so-called exclusion strategy, which means that individuals rather than the collective should be punished for team offenses.
On Thursday, the police told Football Channel that the new condition will be used in rounds 24-25 and then evaluated.
On Friday, the police backed down completely and stated that the requirement will not be introduced for the next round.
