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SAAB BANKRUPTCY BATTLE

SAAB

Saab to file for bankruptcy: report

Beleaguered Swedish automaker Saab is expected to file for bankruptcy on Monday, according to reports in the Swedish media.

Saab to file for bankruptcy: report

Citing “several independent sources”, Swedish business daily Dagens Industri (DI) reported early on Monday that Saab’s parent company Swedish Automobile (Swan) is expected to submit a bankruptcy petition on Monday afternoon to the Vännersborg District Court.

However, a “well-placed” source at Saab told the TT news agency that a decision about putting Saab in bankruptcy has yet to be taken.

Anette Hellgren, chair of the Saab chapter of the Unionen labour union, told TT she hadn’t heard anything about the reported bankruptcy either.

“We haven’t heard anything about this,” she said.

*Whether negotiations between Saab and Chinese firm Youngman have reached a conclusion also remains unclear.

“As far as I know they were still negotiating at the weekend in Stockhlm,” Thomas Haglund, chair of the Saab chapter of the white collar Ledarna labour union, told TT.

Haglund refused to comment on whether or not Saab had filed for bankruptcy, saying he preferred to “wait and see”.

“It’s only a rumour,” he told TT.

Last Wednesday, Saab’s appointed administrator Guy Lofalk asked the court to lift the bankruptcy protection that has keep creditors at bay for weeks, saying there is no money left to carry out a successful reorganization of the business.

Meanwhile Saab employees are still waiting to be paid for November.

Saab CEO Victor Muller responded by trying to stitch up a solution that wouldn’t require approval of Saab’s previous owner, US automaker General Motors (GM), which previously put a stop to the planned purchase of Saab by Chinese auto companies Pang Da and Youngman.

Muller has been negotiating with Youngman for a loan that would allow Saab to pay workers for November and continue with the reorganization.

According to a source at Saab, the Chinese have promised to provide the funds, but have yet to actually deliver the money.

“The situation is extremely difficult, but there hasn’t been a decision about bankruptcy,” the source told TT.

As of the close of business on Monday, the court had yet to receive any bankruptcy petition from Saab.

However, bankruptcy rumours forced a halt in trading for shares of Swedish Automobile on the Amsterdam stock exchange after the share price dropped by 20 percent.

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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.

Recommended reading for Swedish history buffs:

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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