SVT was ported – raging
Updated 03.17 | Published 02.55
MONTERREY. The national team was bused 45 minutes from Monterrey for a final training session before the WC premiere.
There, TV4’s team sat locked in a room.
– Completely bizarre, says Olof Lundh.
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Sweden would have done their pre-match training at the Estadio Universitario in Monterrey. But after Japan complained that the pitch was too bad, Blågult’s training before the World Cup premiere against Tunisia was moved to Rayado’s training centre.
– It’s only positive even if the journey is a few minutes longer, said national team manager Stefan Pettersson when the change was completed.
But the journey took 45 minutes one way with a police escort for Sweden out into the countryside outside Monterrey.
The national team is therefore forced to sit on a bus for 90 minutes the night before its WC premiere.
The security burden was great. For the last few kilometers there were police cars at every other intersection and corner and the facility was meticulously guarded by police and guards.
“Absolutely absurd”
TV4 really felt the security pressure.
Because when the national team had arrived, it turned out that the television channel’s three-man team was already in place at the simple training facility – but locked in a “press room” guarded by the Guardia Nacional.
– It was completely absurd, says Olof Lundh.
– You realize that it’s a new world and I don’t really know anything about the security situation here, but I’ve never experienced being locked in a room without a toilet or water or anything.
There they sat for half an hour.
– Martin von Knorring (reporter) was stopped when he needed to go to the toilet. But in the end all three of us went out at the same time and then they got upset and tried to stop us. But then they couldn’t resist. You can tan about it now, but it was actually quite bizarre.
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This was half an hour before the training had even started.
Press manager Petra Thorén emphasizes that this was not according to the national team’s instructions to the local organizer at all, but it was meant that Lundh & Co would be allowed to go down to the training ground in advance. But somewhere there had been a misunderstanding.
“We are extremely dissatisfied”
In a way, it was even worse for the other television rights holder, SVT, who arrived a couple of minutes late at the gate a couple of hundred meters from the pitch. There they were stopped by a guard who was relentless and SVT therefore missed the entire open part of the training and did not get any pictures from the last training before the WC premiere which they broadcast.
– We are extremely dissatisfied, says the seasoned reporter Björn Nordling, who has never experienced anything like this.
– I have never experienced this and yet I have won a number of championships. Very strange, he says.
On top of everything, there was a real downpour just as training started.
