PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a great role model for many young people in Sweden.
But now the Swedish football star has to receive strong criticism.
“Zlatan has failed the suburban children”, writes the author Zana Kaya in a debate article for Göteborgs-Posten.
There are few Swedish sportsmen who mean so much to Swedish suburbs as Zlatan Ibrahimovic. His popularity is immeasurably great among the younger generation and is the great role model for many younger Swedes with an immigrant background.
Criticism of Ibra
But in a dark year 2022, when shootings and gang crime increased like an avalanche and hit the Swedish suburbs hard, Zlatan now has to receive harsh criticism.
“One thing that has struck me is that Zlatan Ibrahimovic has neither commented on the development of violence nor tried to send a concrete message to all these young men in the suburbs to strive for better dreams or goals,” writes the author Zana Kaya in a debate post at GP.
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The debater believes that Zlatan can influence so much to improve everyday life for many and help more than he actually does.
“The advantage of a committed Zlatan, for the vast majority who look up to him and want to be the next football professional but end up in serious crime instead, would be that decision-makers at both the Riksdag and municipal level had listened more. Zlatan possesses tools like no other: he can influence via his social channels, contact decision-makers in a completely different way and be the voice that motivates kids at home,” he writes in the debate post.
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“Zlatan is needed”
The author draws parallels to other suburban soccer players who do their utmost to help, there Robin Quaison helps young people in Husby and Martin Mutumba commits to Rinkeby. But “Ibra” seems to have forgotten his dear Rosengård.
“Somewhere it feels like Ibra has ended up further and further away from his roots and background. His image as the boy from Rosengård is slowly being erased and you hardly see him at all in contexts that touch on exclusion,” writes Kaya at the local newspaper.
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With his debate post, Zana Kaya wants to appeal to Zlatan Ibrahimovic to rethink and help where it is most needed, for those who need him the most. Because right now the 41-year-old has failed the suburban kids.
“Zlatan is needed more than ever now, where he belongs, with the vulnerable children who run around with the ball under their arm, as he himself did. But perhaps that is too much to ask. However, it should be a reasonable demand for the Milan player, who has been backed by the suburban kids who have always protected him against media drives and other haters,” he writes in his post.
“Zlatan has failed the suburban kids, but I hope he will come back to put pressure on politicians, create different academies that benefit society and get decision makers to invest in the suburbs that are in great need of renovation. Right now there are too many padel arenas that take his attention.”
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