"THE FAIREST MAN IN SWEDEN" Fair Play On 13th April, at the Annual General Meeting of the Swedish Football Association, Thomas Wernersson receives Sweden's 1995 Fair Play award as a tribute to his intervention during last season's league match between IFK Göteborg and AIK Stockholm. The former Sweden and IFK Göteborg goalkeeper is now the General Manager at the club which, apart from its two UEFA Cup successes, has made its mark in the UEFA Champions League. There was friction between two groups of rival sup porters before the game and, once play got under way, this was translated into verbal exchanges and, finally, some ugly racist chanting aimed at AlK's Pascal Simpson, a goalscoring midfielder born in Sweden and who celebrates his 25th birthday on the 5th of this month. Thomas Wernersson reacted immi- diately. Fie grabbed the stadiumspeaker's micropho ne and, apart froma asking his own fans to stop the chanting, he told them their behaviour was totally unacceptable. His action not only stopped the racist chanting. It changed the whole atmosphere in the stadium and there was no more trouble either during or after the match. In giving him the award, the jury's citation emphasised that at a time whem racism is worryingly increasing in society and in sport, Thomas Wernersson s action stood out as "a powreful gesture of Fair Play" which emphasised the responsibilities of leaders in sport. "He proved that a vigorous reaction," said the judges, "can wake up the suppor ters, change unsporting behaviour and make them see sense." The award also means a cash prize of 50,000 Swedish kronor (about 10,000 Swiss francs) for the Swedish association to invest in a Fair Play campaign aimed at Youth football.Thomas Wernersson's success is all the more noteworthy as Sweden's Fair Play Trophy is not a purely footballing award, but one sponsored by the National Sports Federations in connunction with the Sportswriters' Association. The first footballing win ner was Björn Nordqvist in 1977 while he was back at home with IFK between spells of "exile" at PSV Eindhoven and Minnesota Kicks. Since then, the award has gone to IFK Göteborg (1981), Torbjörn Nilsson (1985), Tommy Svensson (1994) and, in 191, to Pia Sundhage who wins her 140th cap for the Swedish women's team against Spain in a European preliminary match next month. Thomas Wernersson thus becomes the sixth football personality to win the Fair Play award in its 20 years of existence - and he has won with an outstanding gesture. Nice one Thomas! Thomas Wernersson, as the IFK goalkeeper, proudly clutches the UEFA Cup in 1982 after having beaten Hamburger SV in the final. 19

AJAX ARCHIEF

Programmaboekjes (vanaf 1934) | 1996 | | pagina 19