Criticism was massive during RF’s extraordinary annual general meeting.
Several of the sports federations that would initially have been excluded from elite sports support in 2024 and 2025 gave emotional speeches about a split within the sports movement.
Anna Iwarsson, who got off to a hot start as the newly elected president of RF-SISU, tells SVT Sport that it has never been the aim to divide Swedish sports into an A and a B team.
– It is deeply unfortunate if that is the interpretation, because it is not the right path for us. I would rather see it as the sports movement consisting of a diversity of different sports, where everyone has a unique role to contribute, she says.
The board backed away from decisions after the criticism
The Swedish Sports Confederation’s board, the National Sports Board, partly heeded the criticism at the meeting and rescinded the preliminary decision on elite sports support for 2025 (the distribution for 2024 is fixed).
The meeting also voted through the proposal that all confederations with national team activities should be included in the work with the RF’s elite sports support and Elite Sports 2030 going forward.
“Now we have to learn from it”
Anna Iwarsson believes that too much focus has ended up on the financial part of the support, which according to her is only a small part of the whole.
– It must be remembered that when it comes to elite development, it is also very much about education, dual careers, all activities on Bosön and so on.
But if we stick to the financial side, why weren’t all the special sports federations included from the start?
– We have chosen to prioritize, focus and narrow down to see where we can really reach our ultimate medals. Then these criteria, which have been developed in recent years, have led us to this result.
– So the board has actually followed the decisions that have been made, but we got these consequences. So now we have to learn from it and have the continued dialogue completely in line with the decision at the meeting, says Anna Iwarsson.
Musse Hasselvall, one of the critics: “Some fucking scumbag”: