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Sweden to bar Russia-based ice hockey players from national team

Swedish ice hockey players playing in Russia's KHL league next season will not be allowed to play for their national teams, the country's hockey federations said on Monday.

Published: 3 May 2022 13:36 CEST

Sweden to bar Russia-based ice hockey players from national team

Sweden's national hockey team stands for the national anthem before a match against Czechia in November. Photo: Stefan Jerrevång/TT

“Those players who choose to play in the KHL next season will not be eligible for our national team, but the formal,” Swedish Ice
Hockey Federation secretary general Johan Stark told Swedish news agency TT, adding that the decision would be taken formally by the federation’s board at the end of the season.

The Swedish federation had initially issued a statement saying its KHL players would not be available for play in the World Championships in Finland May 13-29, but Stark told daily Aftonbladet that statement had been “unclear”.

He clarified that players who signed contracts with KHL teams before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 would be allowed to play in the World Championships.

“Those players who signed contracts before (the war started) will be able to play,” Stark said. “In the best of worlds, we would have preferred for no Swedes to play in the KHL. The decision to stay (in the KHL) is up to the players themselves, but I know it’s not that easy to just leave,” Stark said.

The Finnish Ice Hockey Association was the first to announce the restriction on KHL players, saying in a statement that “players playing in Russia next season cannot play for the national team”.

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EXPLAINED: Why is Swedish cricket facing a scandal?

In May last year, RF withdrew the Swedish Cricket Association’s funding due to problems with the association’s democracy.

One of the chief issues, according to RF, is that the cricket association has regularly held extra yearly meetings, with different factions within Swedish cricket using these as an opportunity to express their lack of confidence in the association’s board, regularly dismissing and reappointing different board members.

“Something was not right,” Björn Eriksson, RF chairman between 2015 and 2023, told SVT in its new mini documentary on Swedish cricket.

So, what happened?

In April 2019, the association held an annual general meeting (AGM), where the current chairman, Tariq Suwak, was elected. A few months later in December, this board was dismissed at an extraordinary general meeting.

Between 2021 and 2022, two AGMs and four extraordinary general meetings were held, with some members of the board replaced in 2021 and again in 2022, where Suwak was again appointed chairman.

In spring last year, RF withdrew state funding after an external investigation by Ernst and Young determined that the association’s leadership lacked the ability to lead, was incapable of carrying out long-term structural work to improve the association, lacked transparency and did not have the same level of democracy as other sport associations in Sweden.

“We believe that the association’s management and much of the rest of its activities are permeated by a poor understanding of how associational democracy should work,” the report stated. “Amendments to the statutes and extraordinary annual general meetings are used as a weapon to counteract people with dissenting views.”

“What they say in the report, it’s the truth,” cricket association chairman Tariq Suwak told SVT. “It’s a fair description of Swedish cricket”.

The report also stated that there was a lack of dialogue between association members and its board, which Suwak agrees with.

“I’ve felt the same way, as have many others… that there’s a lack of dialogue with the board. An extraordinary general meeting has felt like the only forum for asking questions and communicating with those who make the decisions,” he told SVT.

In a statement on its website, RF explained its decision to withdraw funding as “based on serious deviations from the values of sport and deviations from the member association’s obligations regarding auditors and auditing according to RF statutes”.

According to SVT’s documentary, the issue appears to be that certain groups have tried to adapt Swedish cricket to the benefit of their own club, for example by getting involved in deciding which teams will play each other, which teams will have the most home games, or even choosing the players for the national team.

Later that year, the club went through a financial crisis, ending the contracts of everyone in its headquarters. It was issued a list of necessary measures which need to be taken in order for it to requalify for economic support and remain a member of RF, including hosting courses in association democracy and tightening up the association’s statutes in order to “reduce the risk of non-democratic elements at annual meetings”.

What happens now?

In December last year, RF granted the cricket association a loan of 750,000 kronor “after the association could show that it has begun measures in accordance with the action plan which are going in a positive direction”.

“There are still major shortcomings, but we see a greater understanding from the association of what needs to be done, and a plan for carrying out that work,” SF vice chairman Toralf Nilsson said at the time.

“This gives us hope that they will be able to solve their challenges and create methods to work with democratic governance, prioritising knowledge of associations and work with where work to build knowledge of running an association as well as work on basic values must be prioritised.

The loan must be paid back by August 2024.

Do you know more about this? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. You can watch SVT Sport’s investigation into this topic here.

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