Earlier today, the Judges Committee, DK, announced that Martin Strömbergsson's appeal had been rejected because they had not found sufficient reasons to reconsider the decision.
This means that the Allsvenskan referee is suspended for the rest of the year. SVT Sports expert Daniel Nannskog, however, thinks that the penalty is too harsh and that Strömbergsson should be back and judge earlier than that.
- I think it is great that you mark and do not allow racism, but to be closed all year I think is very hard, says Daniel Nannskog and continues:
- Everyone can do wrong and say the wrong things and somewhere I think the selection has been strong, not only against referees but also against players. He is remorseful and in my opinion I think he has been punished enough. I think I should come back and judge in the fairly near future.
It was in June that the 43-year-old referee was suspended after Östersund's goalkeeper Aly Keita, in a podcast, told that Strömbergsson said “Stop talking. Go back to your goal so they can throw bananas at you ”to him.
Strömbergsson himself, however, says that the words were really "jump into the cage and I will give you a banana".
In an interview with Gefle Dagblad on June 5, Strömbergsson said that he was remorseful and that he had no racist intent in the words he said to Keita.
- There are two things that made me extra sad in everything that happened - first and foremost, a goalkeeper has been offended by something I said last year and then my personal brand has received a racist suit in the media. The two parts have hurt.