Why soccer might be Sweden’s way out of a gang crime crisis
Robert Wirehag (center) arranges youth soccer games in the Swedish city of Uppsala. photo illustration by CNN CNN —
Every Saturday night throughout the year, Robert Wirehag – a pastor and former youth soccer player for Swedish club IK Sirius – arranges “night football” in Gottsunda, a suburb of Uppsala, Sweden’s fourth-largest city.
Uppsala is traditionally known as a peaceful university town roughly 44 miles from the capital of Stockholm, but there are no college students to be seen in the center of Gottsunda on this night.
There are, however, plenty of young boys between the ages 12-17 – all of whom Wirehag says are “potential gang members.”
“Why? Because they live in a specific suburb in the outer part of this city,” he tells CNN Sports. “And they are – all of them – at risk of being recruited to the gangs. Some of the boys we are working with are already in gangs. Some of them are on their way to being recruited, and some of them are not yet there.”
The suburbs where they hold night football sessions are socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, where people often lack access to well-paid jobs, frequently due to language barriers. This creates a breeding ground for criminal activity, Wirehag explains.
“Criminal lifestyles emerge in places where there is no money. This leads to people wandering around with nothing meaningful to do. They are at risk of being drawn into a lifestyle of making quick money in an easy but criminal way. That’s why we run activities on Saturday nights – because that’s when they tend to roam around the most.”
One of the participants on the night CNN visits is 18-year-old Abdulraof Alchaieb, known as Abudi to his friends.
“Every Saturday night, I’m here. It’s a war on the field,” he tells CNN.
The “war,” in fact, seems to start at team selection. Starting out, Wirehag thought the best idea would be for him to pick the teams. Growing up in a Swedish culture, he didn’t like the thought of the boys picking teams themselves, since someone would always be everyone’s last choice.
“They then chose to leave, in protest against my team selection,” says Wirehag. “I was given the tip to let the guys decide themselves, and ever since then, it’s been working perfectly.”
“Perfectly” is not the term everyone would choose to describe the chaos unfolding, but after 10 minutes of loud arguments, the teams are chosen. Abudi, who also plays on the under-19s for first-division Swedish club Sunnersta AIF Fotboll, is one of the team captains.