IN Renée’s bridge football legend Tomas Brolin opens up about the bullying he was subjected to when he played in the British Leeds United FC He says that there was a culture clash when he started playing in the team and that he saw flaws in how certain things were handled.
– England was quite behind in everything called football, he says in the program.
He managed to play a real heroic match as a new player at the club before everything turned around for him. When he challenged the coaches on how things were done at the club, and pointed to how things were run during his time at Parma, they turned on him.
– I tried to talk about how we did in Italy. Then it became adult bullying deluxe.
Punishment: Not allowed to drink water
He was punished in several ways. He was rarely allowed to play matches and was forbidden to drink water in training. He had to hide PET bottles around the pitch to get fluids.
– It really tried to push me down. I don’t think many people could have managed what I managed.
If he had less self-confidence and believed in what others thought and thought of him, it would have ended in a completely different way, he believes. Instead of listening to the bullies, he tried to think about the positives in life. He never blamed himself for what happened.
– If I had started thinking along those lines, then I probably wouldn’t be alive today.
Quit football
Brolin retired as a professional football player at just 28 years old. Just a year after he stopped playing for Leeds United FC
“What’s sad is that you might have been able to have a longer career if this hadn’t happened,” he says in Renée’s bridge.
In the player above, hear him talk about the difficult time – and how he got through the toughest – in the player above.