Swedish police and football supporters: A relationship without future prospects?

With a total of 2.6 million attendees in 2019, it is hard to argue against the fact that Allsvenskan, the top tier men’s football league in Sweden, is one of the most popular cultural phenomenons in Sweden. Even though the league itself is ranked 23rd in Europe according to the UEFA league ranking, fans are still flocking to the stadiums, which is especially apparent as post-pandemic attendances are reaching higher levels than ever. Even an uninitiated eye can see that the reason for people going to watch these games are not due to the world quality football being played. So why is it that with attendances being at an almost all-time high and fans not having been able to go see football live for over a year, the Swedish police want to introduce crowd reductions and restrict the use of flags and other expressions of fan culture?

Swedish football faced a mild crisis in the 90s, with an average attendance in 1990 of only 4608. People speculated that this was a result of both hockey taking over as the most popular sport, but also that going to see sports live was a diminishing activity due to television. However, this era was also the starting point of something new in Swedish football. Supporters to the clubs from Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö started taking inspiration from fans from the UK, Italy and Germany, forming a new culture with tifos, flags and pyrotechnics, something that was not common on Swedish stands before this. Starting from basically zero, these groups slowly began changing the atmosphere surrounding Swedish football games. Attendances started growing, and it started to seem like Swedish football finally had found a way back to become relevant again. However, there were some dark sides to this development as well. Since much inspiration was drawn from English football culture, which had a big problem with hooliganism in the 80s, ultimately leading to the ban of standing areas in the English top-tier, this disorderliness increased in Sweden as well. The most infamous incident was that involving “Terror-Tommy” in a game between Djurgården and Halmstad in 1995, where a fan kicked down referee Anders Frisk, sparking a debate surrounding this newly developed fan behaviour in Swedish football. 

Turning the clock to the 2010s, hooliganism has dramatically decreased in Swedish football, and a generally more friendly climate than in the 90s and early 2000s. But only speaking about violent hooliganism will lead us to miss one of the most crucial points in this whole conflict that is today between football supporters and the police - pyrotechnics and flares. Flares had been common on football arenas all over Europe for a long time, and first appeared in Sweden in the 90s. It is seen by many football supporters as an important way to express their culture and support of their team. The use of flares and other pyrotechnics, such as smoke bombs, are prohibited on almost all stadiums in Europe, but are still used frequently in most countries. In Sweden, the penalty for the use of pyrotechnics on a football game are fines or prison of up to 6 months, as well as suspension from future games. Previously clubs were also fined for each individual flare that occured during their home games, regardless of the precautionary measures undertaken by the club.. This meant that clubs who failed to add precautionary measures escaped fines when their well-behaved crowd attended. However, clubs with rowdy and sneaky fans would still be slapped with hefty fines whenever a fan evaded their expensive security checks.

The debate shifted heavily from hooliganism to flares in the 2010s, where voices mainly from fans who supported flares and the police were up against each other. Another important thing to point out is that in Sweden it is the police that gives permission for clubs to arrange big games - without a police permission you cannot have a game with thousands of fans in the stands. That means that the police dictates the rules surrounding the game, e.g. how many people you are allowed to let in and other safety measures the clubs must undertake in order to get a permission. While the debate in the 2010s often got spiteful and sometimes a bit dirty, attendance numbers continued growing on Swedish games, as well as the number of flares used on Swedish games. 

Sweden is often viewed as one of the least religious countries in the world, with 82% of Swedes stating that religion is not an important part of their daily life. But people will seek meaning and relevance, which can be found in other circumstances than religion. Swedes might not believe in god, but many Swedes believe in football. As a cohesive force, football is unmatched in Sweden today. Traditionally male-dominated, more and more women are also starting to seek the group feeling of being part of a fan base. Many parallels can be drawn between supportership and religion; chants, a common goal and symbols. Swedes are today finding other ways of being human and expressing themselves in a society where religion is diminishing and seen as outdated. Symbols that previously were crosses, clothes and rules about eating, are replaced by flags and pyrotechnics. Taking away or prohibiting a religious symbol or ritual is often done with much caution and respect, but is it so when it comes to supportership?

Swedish police have abolished the previous system where clubs were fined for each individual flare that were ignited. The replacement? The infamous “Villkorstrappan” that was implemented in 2019. In the arranged permissions that the police prepared for each game, flags were prohibited and attendance reductions implemented if flares had appeared on the clubs previous games. The police argued that this was due to clubs not being able to arrange safe games, while supporters saw this as a declaration of war on their culture and way of life. The implementation of “Villkorstrappan” lead to protests not only by fans, but also players and club and league representatives. They argued that the police took disproportionate actions towards football games that was relatively safe compared to concerts, festivals and other events where thousands of people gathered together at the same time. Just as the tension between the police and supporters reached its highest ever, Covid happened, and people were left out of stadiums for more than a year. Would this be a chance for agreement or would the warfare between the police and Swedish football continue even after the pandemic?

Fast forward to September 2021, and the Covid restrictions on stadiums are finally gone. The first game to be played with full attendance was arguably the biggest one in Sweden, or northern Europe for that matter; AIK-Djurgården. With less than a week to the game, the home side AIK still had not gotten their permission from the police, and did not know if any restrictions on the attendance were to be implemented. From an outside perspective it seemed as if the police knowingly delayed the permission in a sort of power demonstration, arguing that it was a standard procedure. The result was a reduction in the size of the stands by half, and frustration among both clubs and supporters reached a peak. A few weeks earlier the police had stated that “Villkorstrappan” had been abolished, and that a new strategy was to be implemented, something that resulted in confusion in the light of this previous decision to reduce attendance. The police had at the same time stated that their vision was to have no police present at Swedish football games in 5 years. This is a statement that is very problematic, since it is hard to imagine events with thousands of visitors without any police. It can be seen as abuse of power from the police side, where they downgrade the importance of one of the most important cultural institutions in Sweden and a big part of many peoples lives in order to cut their budget. In the same game, films from supporters showed seemingly unprovoked violence from police towards supporters, resulting in even further protests from players, stands and club officials during the next games.

While it can seem as if the police simply are doing their job trying to get illegal flares away from football games, their actions and strategies are irrational and problematic. The decisions they have taken in cutting down on the size of attendance and banning flags seem both ineffective and disproportionate; the number of flares have not decreased even though stands have seriously been affected by reductions, and both clubs and supporters that does not use them get punished for a crime that most often only results in a fine. An otherwise very crime-free scene gets punished more heavily than any other cultural phenomenon undeservingly, while festivals and concerts are never stricken by the same consequences. It is hard to see that only the use of flares can result in such actions that the police have taken, and a conspiratory mind can easily draw conclusions about police budgets needing a cut, and football taking the biggest hit. While music and theater have big political backing, football is often not a top priority from Swedish politicians. Our Minister for Culture and Democracy, with responsibility for sport, has been worryingly quiet during this conflict. While the conflict has been going on for quite a while, an end is nowhere to be seen. Will the police’s wish of no police in five years be fulfilled, or can another solution based on cooperation be found?