Not allowed to speak their own language

Haparanda: in a division III game between the teams of Trångfors and Haparanda, the referee forbid the players in Haparanda to speak Finnish with each other, even though not all of the players knew Swedish. They were warned, which got the Haparanda players to leave the field for a short while.
- I didn’t believe what I heard, says coach Janne Nurmela

The team of Haparanda consists mostly of Finnish players, who live on the Finnish side of the border in Tårneå. All of them can’t speak Swedish, but the Swedish girls in the team know how to speak Finnish, which is why Finnish is the main language in the team.

The coaches were mighty surprised when one of the linesmen stepped up after ten minutes of play and told them that they couldn’t speak Finnish with the players.

When the head coach claimed that he hadn’t heard that from any other referee, he got the answer “maybe they didn’t know the rules”.

- The linesman said that there is a rule that says if any other language is going to be used, it must be English.

The second coach Jouni Luiro made it clear to the same linesman that he could prove that seven of the thirteen Haparanda players have foreign background, namely girls from Finland with Finnish as their main language.

The linesman said that didn’t have anything to do with it.

Couldn’t believe it
In the beginning of second half, the referee paused the game and told the players they weren’t allowed to speak Finnish on the field.

Janne Nurmela says:
- Team captain Johanna Nygård shouted this to me, and I told her ”you can speak whatever you want to”. I couldn’t believe it. Johanna tried to explain in English to the referee and asked him what language Pourtugeese, Brazilians among others speak when they play in Sweden.

- A short while after that, one of our players was warned for saying an offensive word in Finnish, which she haven’t said. When the captain asked why she was warned, he warned her for inappropriate behaviour. After that, some of the players came to us and said that they couldn’t play with these premises.

Nurmela and lurio told the players to go the locker room. Some member of the theme stayed on the field but the match was blown of.
A large part of the spectators went home and was stunned by the situation said the haparanda team leaders.

In the end the referee said that they could speak Finnish if they came out and plays. We promise to do that if the two yellow cards were taken away. But after the game it turned out that the card on the captain wasn’t removed, Janne Nurmela said.
After the game the referees apologised for the behaviour, that is after a inspector corrected the referees.

They meant that such a rule existed before but the union haven’t informed that the rule had been removed, which I seriously doubt. Any way it’s the referees thing to sort out which rules that is right ore not, Nurmela said.
he tells us that many of the players called the next day and told that they felt insulted which felt it to be a racist harassment.

/Olof and Christian