Scandinavian Football Racism

While in Scandinavia recently I heard of incidents in Denmark and Sweden. The one in Sweden involved banana-throwing at a \match in Stockholm. Is this unusual for Scandinavia and what if anything is done about it?

I always thought the Scandinavian nations to be very tolerant , seems one or two are still living in the stone-age.

i can remember two years ago a small group of organised AGF fans sent a letter on their website telling a south african player to go home because he was black. but AGF quickly did what they could to distance themselves. i think brondby went out and started giving posters about figthing racism.

Raifael wrote:I always thought the Scandinavian nations to be very tolerant , seems one or two are still living in the stone-age.

I was surprised by it as well. Didn't expect anything like it for reasons you mention, but there is one guy the keeper of Djurgardens that has had bananas chucked at him more than once. On one occasion he picked one up and ate it.

It is pretty known that especially Finland is pretty racist. No surprise to me.

[quote="Since 1888"]It is pretty known that especially Finland is pretty racist. No surprise to me.[/quote]

Really. Hadn't heard that. Any teams in particular?

EMP wrote:[quote="Since 1888"]It is pretty known that especially Finland is pretty racist. No surprise to me.[/quote]

Really. Hadn't heard that. Any teams in particular?

No, just the people in particular. There was a huge fuss when the national tv had a dark girl as presenter for example. Very hard for coloured people there from what I heard.

EMP wrote:While in Scandinavia recently I heard of incidents in Denmark and Sweden. The one in Sweden involved banana-throwing at a \match in Stockholm. Is this unusual for Scandinavia and what if anything is done about it?

Crowd racism is uncommon in Sweden and that example of yours is actually misunderstood. The team I support is called Djurgården, which is an island in Stockholm. The name literally means "Animal garden", so rival teams tend to taunt us with animal jokes of different kinds. One silly tradition is to throw bananas at Djurgården's goal keeper as if he's a monkey, and this has been done to all our keepers for quite a while whether they're black or white.

Thing is, our current goalie is Pa Dembo Touray, a Gambian international. Media blows the banana throwing out of proportion and call it a racist attack, while even fans of Djurgården know that it has nothing to do with the colour of his skin.

Glad that's been cleared up now. God forbid that football fans here bring inflatable bananas to matches like they did it the eighties.

BTW What did Mr Touray say about the incident?

His reply was classy:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/3696958.stm

Hi Sadomin & welcome

How did you find the board? You a Swede living the UK?

I live in Sweden and found these forums through a YouTube video. For a football message board, the quality of content is surprisingly high.

Sadomin wrote:I live in Sweden and found these forums through a YouTube video. For a football message board, the quality of content is surprisingly high.

Interesting. On youtube eh?

Yes, this forum isn't half bad, and the only one I post on regularly. Good range of posters from the UK, France, America, Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Spain, Italy etc, and even the likes of Brasil & Argentina.

Not to sure if there's much of a Scandinavian contingent? Bash lives in Sweden I think, and supermadrid lives in Denmark. Not too sure on any others.

Many of us were on the BBC's 606 boards, before their unfortunate demise.

There has been some sad incidents where swearwords among players have contained racist words. 5 years ago racism in football weren't a big issue here (meaning it more or less didn't exist), sadly everyday racism is pretty much accepted nowadays, also in football.

This probably because (talking of football now) more and more foreign, and then especially African (like Mikel etc) players have joined our leagues, and the Scandinavians feel not as a big priority as before. This is the issue in Norway at least

Has anyone heard of an incident with Lyngby earlier this year? Response of the club and supporters known as Blue Vikings was welcome.

@ Sadomin: I had heard that it wasn't considered racist by fans of other clubs. Interesting that your supporters don't consider it racist as well. I had read somewhere that Touray was getting fed up with it.