Durmaz: "It's a lot of bullying"

In Russia last summer, Jimmy Durmaz felt it was time to say goodbye. With the World Cup squad behind them, the national team midfielder gave a speech addressed to everyone who had published racist and hateful comments on his social media following Sweden's loss to Germany in Sochi.

However, the position was not new to the 30-year-old.

Durmaz has long been acquainted with all kinds of penalism and in the past, during his career, silently handled other people's actions, expressions and opinions.

- If you go back, it's been my whole life, since scratch, since I was a kid. I have always been told different things, he says.

- As a professional player it became more. When I came to Malmö FF it was totally okay but as soon as I was selected for the national team, then it started to come anything other than being a football player.

TT: What were you exposed to then?

- Racist comments and stuff like that. It has been built on all the time. At first it was thought that it would let go the more you performed but unfortunately it has only become more and more.

- Finally, the bomb came - and then I had to say properly that it was not acceptable, and now we are working on it.

Durmaz has been involved in organizations such as Locker Room Talk, Friends, Speak Up Sweden for some time now and most recently he is part of the anti-bullying campaign that Friends does together with Cartoon Network.

The purpose of the work as a whole is to create a safer society, a better environment for children and young people to grow up in.

- I feel that these issues are very important for me personally and for the society in our Sweden. Can I help with the smallest thing I do.

TT: Why are the questions important to you?

- We see what society looks like today; that it is very much bullying, that it is very much macho culture ... It has gotten worse. Right now we are working hard on this and we see little difference in what we have worked with, with the young people we have worked with, and when you see that there is a difference, the question becomes even more important.

TT: What have you seen for differences?

- You see how committed the children are to the question, how they take it, how they dare to tell in different contexts. You see differences in how they behave, how they talk, how they are with each other and that they try to have fun instead of being bad at each other.

Jimmy Durmaz strives to create an environment where young people should know that there is always someone they can turn to.

- You are not alone if you are being bullied or if someone in your vicinity is being bullied. You should dare talk about it, with whoever it is; whether it is one of your loved ones, a friend or if it is the curator at school. That's what we want to highlight, that there is always someone to talk to.

TT: How have you handled the hate storm in Russia?

- I had my family who supported me very much, my friends and at the same time I had a very strong belief in myself that no one could upset me, he says.

- Obviously it is always hard and so but I tried to stand up and show that I am here anyway, I tried to show those who are network-bullied - or whatever - that it is possible to stand on their own.