A spring of disappointments escalated into violent grandstand scenes.
On Monday, AIK’s CEO Manuel Lindberg resigned.
– Purely in terms of results for our men, it is a fiasco so far, he says.
AIK is second to last in the Allsvenskan and on Sunday evening the derby degenerated away to Djurgården with bangers, bangers and plane storming.
The stands were decorated with resignation banners, partly for coach Andreas Brännström, partly for CEO Manuel Lindberg. The latter of the two has also decided to resign.
In an interview with TV4 Nyheterna, he explains what is behind the decision.
– The football industry is a results-based industry that is very unforgiving and purely in terms of results for our gentlemen, it is a fiasco so far. Then I have my share of that responsibility and then there has been a lot of negative focus around me in the last few days. At the time, I thought it was best for AIK football to go their separate ways.
– I don’t want to become a burden for AIK and now many people think that I am, and that was shown very clearly in the stands yesterday. Then this decision was pretty easy in that sense. It’s clear that it has affected me.
What part of these performance setbacks do you feel responsible for?
– I am responsible for all parts. So it’s not a single thing, but now we haven’t managed to get it together and then I also had a temporary role as sports director and it’s clear that people judge me for that and it’s obvious that people will. The points are the ones that count and we haven’t taken them.
– One of the reasons why it turned out as it did yesterday is precisely the points harvest and that connected to me and my name and the resignation demands that were in that chaos, then it is clear that it also affects my decision.
How did it not turn out as you had planned?
– In general, there was a lot of focus on sport and not on the parts that are my strength.
What can a club like AIK do about the stand problem?
– It is tragic and it is not worthy of AIK to have such a situation. Football has a challenge, then there are very, very good supporters too. I have had a lot of good dialogues with the big AIK groups, I have nothing bad to say about the supporter culture. It is very important for Swedish football, but we have to try to find a balance in this, for those who work with it and what happens in the stands. Because what happened yesterday is reprehensible in every way.
How do you think the club will be affected going forward?
– AIK will always be strong and always come back, but I generally think that AIK needs to think about how to work with little continuity. Now I think I’m the third external CEO to quit in five years. That is the big challenge; how to create a continuity over time that makes people stay in leading positions. You have to achieve that if you want to win more football matches and get more stability in the club.
Condemns the event: “Disastrous”
During Monday, the Swedish Football Association announced that they are appointing an accident commission, where yesterday’s event, but also events from the past year, are to be investigated, writes SVT.
SVFF’s head of security Martin Fredman calls yesterday’s attack both “terrible” and “catastrophic”.
– I know that the organizer puts his soul into trying to create a safe arrangement. And they are getting better and better at preventing this kind of thing. But the opponents, if we are to call them that, are unfortunately also getting better. It’s not such a small group either. There are hundreds of individuals with a large capital of violence, he tells SVT Sport.