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SAAB BANKRUPTCY BATTLE

SAAB

Lift Saab’s bankruptcy protection: administrator

The restructuring of beleaguered Swedish carmaker Saab has been called off by the company's administrator Guy Lofalk, after he submitted a court petition, according to a statement by Saab Automobile.

Lift Saab's bankruptcy protection: administrator

“Guy Lofalk, will apply for termination of the voluntary reorganization of Saab Automobile AB (Saab Automobile – SWAN) and two subsidiaries with the District Court in Vänersborg, Sweden,” the firm confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.

Guy Lofalk was appointed by the Vänersborg district court in southwestern Sweden to oversee Saab’s three-month restructuring process under bankruptcy protection.

The firm confirmed in its statement that it is considering future steps and advised staff that it has five days to submit an appeal.

“The management of Saab Automobile will consider future steps and continue current discussions with Youngman about the necessary funding to pay the wages and be able to continue the voluntary reorganization.”

SWAN stated this week that talks were ongoing with a new configuration of Chinese partners in what was described as a bid to appease previous owner US General Motors (GM) and save the Trollhättan-based firm.

The firm had previously agreed to sell 100 percent of Saab to Youngman and Chinese car distribution company Pang Da, but General Motors blocked the necessary transfer of technology licences to the two Chinese firms.

According to Swedish media reports, Swan had agreed to sell 19.9 percent of Saab to Youngman and 29.9 percent of the firm to state-owned Bank of China, thus ensuring that Chinese ownership remain below the sensitive 50-percent threshold.

Guy Lofalk has previously applied, on October 21st, for the process to be terminated. That application was withdrawn a week later when the plans for the takeover by Pang Da and Youngman were presented.

Saab has no obligation to file for bankruptcy even if the restructuring process were to be ended by the court. There are however four outstanding bankruptcy claims against the firm filed by overseas supplier Takata-Petri.

In its statement on Wednesday, SWAN insisted it was still pursuing discussions with Youngman to allow it to continue the restructuring and especially to find wages for Saab’s some 3,700 employees, whose salaries have been delayed five months running and who have yet to receive their November paychecks.

The attempts to sell Saab to Chinese partners has been seen as the last chance of saving the Swedish carmaker, which was already on the brink of bankruptcy when GM sold it to Swedish Automobile — at the time called Spyker — in early 2010 for $400 million.

It has been a rocky road since then. The carmaker was forced to halt production in April as suppliers stopped deliveries over mountains of unpaid bills.

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FOOTBALL

The day a naked Swedish footballer caused an unexpected scandal

In 1949, a Swedish football player made international headlines when he dared to bare in Brazil.

The day a naked Swedish footballer caused an unexpected scandal
Scroll down for the whole image. Photo: PrB/TT

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Brazil would seem to be one of the last places in the world where a bit of nudity could cause offence, never mind create an international uproar. And yet that is exactly what happened 70 years ago when Swedish football player Sven Hjertsson dropped his drawers during a match in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

Faced with a broken waistband and unwilling to depart the field and leave his team a man down during the close match with Fluminense FC, the 25-year-old defender for Malmö FF made the decision to do a quick change near his team's goalpost.

From the Swedish point of view, the brief nudity this entailed was insignificant. Based on what the Swedish players, coaches and journalists had seen on Brazilian beaches during the 1949 tournament, they clearly assumed the Brazilians would feel the same way. What happened next proved just how vastly different the two countries' views of acceptable nudity were.

“The next day, the Swedish 'Naked Shock' took up full pages in the [Brazilian] megacity's newspapers. The upper-class Fluminense… had never been involved in anything like this,” journalist Henrik Jönsson explained in a 2009 article in the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan.

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In retrospect, it's difficult to say who was more shocked: the Brazilians by Hjertsson's mooning or the Swedes by the Brazilian reaction to it.

“It was a scandal! The Swedish journalists who were on the trip told us about the uproar. People went and confessed after the game. Dad thought it was ridiculous. On the beach, the Brazilians had minimal swimwear,” recalled former Swedish football player Bertil “Klumpen” Nilsson, whose father Sven Nilsson was a Malmö FF coach, in the Sydsvenskan article. “Hjertsson's white butt became the big topic of conversation when Dad came home. No one understood the Catholic double standard.”


The incident laid bare Sweden's and Brazil's different approaches to nudity. Photo: PrB/TT

In the end, Malmö FF lost the match 2-1. The team – the first from Sweden to be invited to Brazil – did not have an easy time in the tournament. The effects of a long flight, difficulty adjusting to the hot and humid climate of Brazil, and a serious bout of diarrhoea that decommissioned half the team during the first week, had all taken their toll. Champions at home in Sweden, the team nonetheless left Brazil without a win.

READ ALSO: Ten rules for getting naked in Sweden

As for the “Naked Shock”, it seemed only to burnish Hjertsson's reputation back in Sweden, and perhaps even overshadow his legacy to some extent. During his 12-year career at Malmö FF, the team won gold four times in the national championships. He also played 13 times for the Swedish national team, which was considered one of the world's greatest football teams between 1945 and 1950. In 1950, the year after the incident in Brazil, Sweden ranked third in the world ranking, ahead of Brazil in fourth place.

Hjertsson died in 1999, but the photo of him from 1949 lives on as a singular glimpse into international football seven decades ago.

Victoria Martínez is an American historical researcher, writer and author of three historical non-fiction books. She lives in Småland county, Sweden, with her Spanish husband and their two children.

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