I was interested to read a piece on todays Local (Swedish news in English) about Brommapojkarna
Their Chairman Ola Danhard has told his players they must speak Swedish to be eligible to play for the team. Brommapojkarna play in Swedens top flight.
In some ways I have sympathy with him. Clubs at this level cannot afford hoardes of translators and Sweden does attract a lot of foreigners who are trying to make their way in the European game.
Of course from a footballing perspective its easier if you can all communicate. We had ‘fun’ watching Hammarby’s Brazilian duo last year, luckily one of the Bajen players starred for a Portuguese team so he was able to communicate with them but..
Unfortunately I do think this will hit BP as they will not be able to sign any of the foreign players. Its bloody hard to learn Swedish. I laugh when I read about Carlos Tevez learning English whilst watching Coronation Street. So many of the tv shows here are in English so… I cant see some of the non Swedish players watching Tinas Cookalong or Niki Nyfiken!
Some critics say this is a racist move but I dont see it as that. If the Chairman feels he will achieve better results by having a 100% Swedish speaking policy then thats his prerogative. In the same way the company I work for insists we use English as the common language for the whole business. As long as people are aware of that before they join I see no problem.
I wonder how long it is before this policy is reversed…..
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Agreed! It’s not a crazy request…
This goes against Swedish and EU laws.
Firstly, this isn’t something new for BP, they’ve had this policy for some time.
Secondly, about BP not being able to recruit foreign players due to this “rule”, probably won’t matter since they rarely, if ever, recruit from outside Sweden (or Denmark, lex Jensen). BP focuses on talents from their own youth teams and don’t have the money or organization to do otherwise.
Why and in which way is it against Swedish or EU laws for a company to say its workers need to speak Swedish?
Jag är nyfiken…
This method was one of the first things Tony Gustavsson enforced when coaching Hammarby. The media was going on and on about it. How stupid is that?
Surely Fredrik Ljungberg didnt speak Swedish while playing for Arsenal…
The 2009 Språklag is very carefully worded to acknowledge Swedish as the “official” language of Sweden, but the law put into place is more so a
ceremonial policy to promote rather than enforce.
If you look closely there is no law to allow enforcement of Swedish to be spoken in the workplace as this would cause a strong legal conflict with EU directives, as well as the laws on swedish human rights http://www.manskligarattigheter.gov.se
Had the club defined its language policy as part of its requirements as an employee qualification this would be a different matter. Also forbidding “foreign” languages not to be used in the locker room would also be strong grounds for the discrimination ombudsman to look into.
Hi
I agree you should companies and organisations should never forbid a language to be used.
As long as new players who want to join BP are informed the principal language is Swedish then I do not see how thats illegal.
It is of course the employees right to say what the language requirements of a workplace are. So I think there has been a lot of overreaction from some media and commentors on the Local who accuse BP of being racist.
Principal language is fine with pre warning as part of terms and conditions of employement, however the use of “banning” is where things start to fall foul.
Had the club come out and said its trainers and management will only use Swedish as an official form of communication to its players and that all players wanting to have their application accepted by the club must be able communicate in Swedish as part of their qualification policy.
But by officially “banning” its players from using languages other than Swedish is where it gets very dicey. Especially since the club has openly defined different areas where they ban such languages such as locker rooms etc.
I understand both sides of the coin, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist that a little tact is needed unless they are purposely looking to shoot themselves in the foot.
Wow that seems a bit harsh. Is it really like that in European countries? I suppose it would be a tactics thing as well when it comes to football. Handy if all the boys speak the same language.
Haha well we enforce that in our workplace English is the first language. We have a very multi-cultural environment and alot of people get offended if others start talking in a different language. Its just plain rude.
Speaking of languages are Swedish and Finnish similar languages? Can you understand each other? It just seems kind of similar.
No they are very very different! Swedish is fairly close to Norwegian though.
An example:
Thank You in Swedish is Tack
Thank You in Finnish is Kiitos
Ahh I see. Interesting.