That the 35-year-old would leave CSKA Moscow was nothing new, but on Saturday the Swede was thanked by the Russian club.
“The transfer to CSKA proved difficult for Jonas in many ways, but he showed no doubt or remorse,” said CSKA chairman Andrej Vatutin in a statement on the club’s website.
When Jerebko this spring chose to sign for the Russian club, the national team chose to stop him from playing in the Swedish suit.
A terminated contract with CSKA does not change the national team’s position.
– That Jonas is leaving CSKA now is not news to us and does not in any way change the position we took in connection with him signing, says the union’s general secretary Fredrik Joulamo.
– The decision we made was linked to signing with knowledge of how Russia has acted in Ukraine. We judged that we had such big differences in values in this matter that it was not compatible with being a national team player.
At the end of June and the beginning of July, decisive World Cup qualifiers await Sweden – without Jerebko.
– Correct, says Joulamo.
What does it take for him to return to the national team?
– It is based on the fact that he would somehow need to tell us what has changed in his way of looking at this issue. It is not impossible that situations like this can arise again, who knows if in a few years it will be relevant for one of our players to be offered a contract in another country that acts in the way Russia has done.
– The players who will play for us must already understand that this is how we look at issues. We would like to have players in the national team who agree with us on that, who accept how we look at these issues and who share those values.
So the ball is with Jonas?
– It absolutely does. I have had conversations with Jonas, but now it was a while ago, in connection with him signing. But I have a very hard time believing that Jonas would come to us now and say: “I regret”, or: “I think it was a wrong decision”.
– He is a person who stands up for his decisions and has always done, I feel that he is very principled in that way. Now the situation is as it is, we are where we are, we have explained what we think and I have a very hard time believing that anything will change.
Do you want to tell us what you said to each other when you spoke last spring?
– No, I like to keep that between us.