After the fatal attack on two Swedes in Brussels, the Belgian Football Association does not attach any importance to finishing the canceled European Championship qualifier. “We will not demand that Sweden give up the game. We want to show respect after the events,” said managing director Manu Leroy of the Belgian association to the newspaper “Le Soir”. He thinks it would be the fairest solution if the game were scored 1:1, i.e. with the score at the time the game was abandoned at halftime.
“I will contact the Swedish association, the Austrian association and UEFA to push this direction,” said Leroy. They will not hold on to their top seed status in Group F. “At some point, ethics and morals have to prevail.” The European Football Union has not yet made a decision on match scoring.
Belgium and Austria each have 16 points with one game before the end of qualifying; in the event of a draw, the Red Devils would gain another point. Both teams have already qualified for the European Championships in Germany. According to the regulations, canceled games must usually be continued at the same location as quickly as possible. The Swedish team left that night after the incidents.
Dismay, sadness and bewilderment are evident there. Swedish football is in shock. “Everyone feels an incredible feeling because two fans won’t come home. It’s terrible,” said Håkan Sjöstrand, general secretary of the Swedish Football Association, describing the depressed mood on Tuesday. The last of the approximately 400 fans who had traveled with them had to wait in the catacombs of the King Baudouin Stadium until 4 a.m.
The hotels in which the approximately 400 Swedish fans were staying were under police protection that night. “The cooperation between fans, associations and authorities worked very well in an extremely tense situation. In total, around 400 Swedes received help over the course of the evening and night,” said Swedish security chief Martin Fredman on the sidelines of the game. The association also praised the behavior of the supporters.
Fans were advised not to display Swedish flags in public. At the same time, they received an offer to be escorted to the airport on their return journey. “Everything is so surreal, beyond all reality. Everyone just wants to get away from here as quickly as possible,” said Andreas Richt from the Swedish fan organization Gula Väggen to the newspaper Aftonbladet.
“What kind of world do we live in?” asked the dismayed Swedish national coach Janne Andersson. “People are being shot in Sweden today in a way that is unreal. Swedish supporters who support Sweden abroad have also apparently become targets. That makes me sad.”
The Swedish national team left the Belgian capital on a charter plane that night. For many Swedish fans, however, the nightmare lasted even longer. For security reasons, they had to stay in the stadium for a long time before they were escorted to their hotels by the police.
The crime scene was only around five kilometers from the former Heysel Stadium. The game kicked off on Monday evening anyway because the authorities thought the arena was a safe place. The Swedish team found out about the incidents at half-time. “During the break I was supposed to have a good chat with the players, but when I heard that I almost started crying. We agreed 100 percent that we didn’t want to continue out of respect for the victims and their families,” said Andersson, who, together with the team, also spoke to the fans traveling with them at a late hour.
The Swedish team also included Bundesliga professionals Emil Forsberg (RB Leipzig), Mattias Svanberg (VfL Wolfsburg) and Hugo Larsson (Eintracht Frankfurt). Sweden’s captain Victor Lindelöf also justified the abandonment of the game by saying that Belgium had already qualified for the European Championships and his team no longer had a chance. “So I don’t see any reason to play. We wanted to get in touch with family and friends straight away to see if they were okay,” said the Manchester United defender.
What will happen to the game is unclear. According to the regulations, canceled games must usually be continued at the same location as quickly as possible. However, the Belgian association does not attach any importance to this. The Swedish association, the Austrian association and the European Football Union will be contacted. Belgium and Austria each have 16 points with one game before the end of qualifying; in the event of a draw, the Red Devils would gain another point. Both teams have already qualified for the European Championships in Germany. “At some point, ethics and morals have to take over,” says Leroy.
