At Tuesday's press conference ahead of the World Cup qualifier against Greece, the Swedish Football Association's (SvFF) general secretary Håkan Sjöstrand was pressured about the plans to set up the national team's training camp in January in Qatar.

Around the same time, the clubs in the Allsvenskan and the Superettan held a meeting with the interest organization Swedish Elite Football (Sef) with the goal of stopping the Qatar trip, something that the Football Channel was the first to report on.

- There has always been a dialogue between the Swedish Football Association and the Swedish clubs about this camp.

In this case, the clubs think that Qatar is not a suitable country to go to.

We make a difference there between the World Cup, which will take place in 2022, which is administered by Fifa.

It is clear that Sweden qualifies for it, as it may have happened.

But for that matter, Sweden does not have to put its own training camps there, says Jens T Andersson to SVT sport. 

Human Rights

Jens T Andersson says that the decision is based on the fact that they do not feel that Qatar complies with the human rights that they believe should be done.

He also says that it has an impact on the elite clubs.

- We think it has a signal value and there are also clubs that have motions from their annual meetings to counteract the exchange with Qatar so there is also a question of responsibility from each individual club where you have different directions on how to handle activities in countries that break against human rights, says Andersson.

Agree on the issue

The clubs in both the Allsvenskan and the Superettan were present at the meeting and agreed on the issue.

- The work that SvFF does before the World Cup is good, but that does not mean that you have to go to Qatar for training camp.

A preparatory camp in January 2022 may be located elsewhere.

When it comes to whether the clubs will release players if the camp ends in Qatar, Andersson does not want to comment.

- I do not want to speculate on that issue because we are not there.

I hope we do not end up there.

We have sent a clear signal to SvFF with whom we have very good dialogues before.

I have high hopes that we will not see a January camp in Qatar, Andersson concludes.

CLIP: Sjöstrand defends the national team's Qatar trip (7 Sep 2021)

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Sjöstrand defends the national team's trip to Qatar Photo: Bildbyrån / Rörligt SVT