Top Swedes boycott national teams

Sweden have an impressive pedigree in women’s rugby.

In 1984 they were the third nation, after France and the Netherlands, to form a national team. Despite their small size and the limitations imposed on them by a climate that forces them to play only in the summer months, they have played nearly 80 test matches and qualified for the World Cup in 2010 where, despite losing all their games, they put in some impressive performances.

In 2012, they looked like they might be on their way to this year’s tournament as well having won the European Division A championship, but in 2013 the team sent to the final qualifier was missing several major names, and finished disappointingly at the foot of the table.

Their record in sevens is equally long and proud, having played at the top level every year prior to 2013, when they found themselves relegated to Division A. But they bounced straight back by reaching the final, and this year might have been expected to consolidate their position alongside the top nations in European rugby.

Yet their performances were very disappointing, with eagle-eyed viewers again spotting the absence of almost all of the major names that took them to the World Cup only four years ago.

ScrumQueens can now reveal that the cause of this has been a serious breakdown of relations between the Swedish RFU and many of its leading players – a rift that began at the end of the 2011/12 season and still appears to be growing. It means that many – if not all - of the country’s top players were absent from the FIRA European Grand Prix Sevens in Moscow last weekend, and will also be missing in Brive this week..

Although the dispute that had been rumbling away for some time in Sweden, it has only recently come to our attention as we were preparing our previews for this year’s competition. Little has previously appeared in print, and what has appeared has, until now, only appeared in Swedish!

The dispute goes back to the 2012 European Sevens, which also doubled as that year’s world Cup qualifier. Scotland, Wales and Ireland, had not appeared on the European sevens circuit for many years (or, in the case of Scotland, ever), took part, with some success, and as a result all three countries entered the 2013 FIRA sevens series.

This created a problem as the normal practice is for FIRA to place Six Nations teams entering their competitions with no recent record into the top tier (instead of putting them in Division B, where they would clearly be too strong). However while there was room at the top to replace the two relegated teams from the 2012 Top 12 (Moldova and Switzerland) there was not room obvious space for a third.

Sweden had finished 10th in 2012 – a disappointing performance, but they had gone away at least reassured that they had retained their position at the top. However, a little while after the end of the 2012 tournament, Neil Johnson, the Swedish coach, was sent letter by FIRA saying that they too had been relegated to Division A.

Neither he nor his players had received any suggestion that this might happen, and they were understandably disappointed. This grew beyond mere disappointment when they were told that the relegation had taken place with the agreement of the Swedish RFU, without – crucially in their opinion – any consultation and without the background to the decision being communicated to the players.

What followed appears to have been a full and frank exchange of views, followed by Neil’s resignation and then the withdrawal of a number of leading players from the Swedish squad in protest. It was therefore a severely weakened Swedish squad which took part in last year’s fifteens World cup qualifier and Division A sevens tournament – though in the latter a heroic effort saw they recover from a pool defeat to Georgia to reach the final and with it promotion back to the Top 12.

However, the dispute continues – and appears to have deepened still now with further players withdrawing. With a great deal of rumour and bad feeling circulating that at the end of last month the players from the Gothenburg club – the top team in Sweden and home to many of the leading players - came together to write an open letter to the Swedish Union to explain why. The letter reads:

It has come to our attention that rumours have been circulating alleging that we, the Ladies section of GRF, have signed an undertaking with our coach, Neil Johnson, that we will not play for the National team.We refute these allegations in the strongest possible terms .A number of barely credible rumours have been circulated over the last year that we can no longer simply ignore. These rumours have been sufficiently bad that they have damaged our desire to continue playing the sport that we love.The decision not to represent the National team this year was taken by each player individually. Believe it or not, it is actually the members who run our club! It was our decision and now things have gone too far!In our previous experiences with the National team we walked onto the pitch with our heads held high and felt enormous pride in the honour of wearing the yellow/blue shirts and singing the National anthem. Of course, there were both victories and reverses - but nothing that we couldn’t handle.The reason that we have chosen not to represent Sweden and the Swedish Rugby Union as a National team is that we are, quite simply, tired of the way that players, coaches and enthusiasts within Swedish rugby have been treated by the Union and its board over the years.

The lack, and sometimes total absence, of communication has made it difficult for us to maintain the joy and passion that we should feel when representing our beloved country. Previously the National team had a complete system in place, with an emphasis on the development of technical, physical, tactical and mental abilities. For example, there were regular open training camps with pathways for new players and the Ladies Rugby Parliament where ideas could be exchanged and developed. The results spoke for themselves with wins in the Europa cup, in the WRWC and GPS. We largely have the National side‘s own organisation and players to thank for that.Piece by piece that organisation was pulled apart. Several of the fantastic coaches and enthusiasts we came into contact with through the National team were sacked or chose to leave their 'posts' because of the lack of cooperation from the Union. It even went so far that potential partnerships were lost due to "all the politics and shit” that players and organisation unfortunately had to deal while trying to perform at the top level. The final straw was when the then squad, together with Neil Johnson, strongly questioned the circumstances and events of how Sweden’s place after the 2012 GPS 10th position was given to Wales and Sweden were relegated to Div 1. The questions from us to the SRF were hushed up and have still not been official recognised.We lost our coach, one of Sweden’s best physios, and a place in the GPS. A place in Europe’s highest division, a place for which we had paid in blood, sweat and tears to maintain for nearly 10 years. We lost everything that we had held dear for so many years and with it the opportunity to perform optimally at the international level. The coaches were sacked, the players were distraught, confused and insulted. The first response from the SRF took 2 months... A response that turned out to be untruthful when we heard the true version during a direct meeting with representatives from FIRA.(This was just one of many incidents.)Despite this, despite all this, some of us stayed and played last year. In both National teams. We tried. We fought. But it just didn’t work. We came home in tears. We had had enough.

We hope that this letter will put an end to the rumours.All we ask is mutual respect, transparency in decision-making and communication and Honesty.We at GRF have the ambition and vision of playing international matches with the same joy and passion that we once felt. Neil Johnson gives us the opportunity to do that and and he has also organised all the sponsorship himself. We now have the opportunity to travel to more tournaments than we could have dreamed of in the National team.We, like everyone else in rugbySweden, wish the current National players the best of luck in their efforts and their play. Players without baggage, players who really want to play and represent the Swedish national team.We hope and believe that things will get better, but right now we ask for your understanding and that you respect our decision. If you have any questions you are more than welcome to contact us.Yours in rugby,GRF Ladies

The response to the statement from other players and followers has been supportive, though prior to our enquirires no public response from the Swedish Rugby Federation had appeared.

However, after we raised the matter with the SRFU they issued the following statement to us.

"The Swedish Rugby Union acknowledges and has acknowledged that communication around the difficult circumstances of being moved down to Division A in 2012 was poor. However, that was 2 years ago and we have had no other choice but to try and move on and build a sustainable programme which can secure the long term competitiveness of Swedish Women’s Rugby.

It is clearly a very unfortunate situation, and caused mainly by a breakdown of communication and then trust between the Swedish Union and many of its players – something that can happen anywhere if the links between administrators and players is broken, and most especially in an amateur sport which relies so much on good will.

It is also a setback for Swedish rugby. While new players have steped into the breach and will learn a lot, all of the skills and experience of international rugby that the players involved in the boycott have now been lost to the next generation who are coming through, unless they happen to be at Gothernburg RFC.

There is also the risk that the distrust between players and officials will continue, which has the potential be corrosive. Clearly olive branches need to be offered but both sides still remain some way apart. A solution will have to be found eventually - European rugby cannot afford to lose a significant player like Sweden.