With Globen scheduled for renovations in 2024, Stockholm’s football teams are being vocal about not wanting to be moved out for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Stockholm is the clear favourite to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, but three of Stockholm’s football teams have made it clear today that they do not want to be moved out of their home grounds for the contest. Globen which hosted the contest in 2000 and 2016, is scheduled to be renovated which leaves the Tele2 Arena and Friends Arena as the only viable options.
Mattis Fri the Chairman of Hammarby’s Men’s team which plays at the Tele2 told Dagens Nyheter that:
“I have no problem with Eurovision, but Tele2 is a football arena and that is what it should primarily be used for. We can’t help but play a quarter of a season just because it’s Eurovision, it’s impossible. Six weeks is a very long period, especially during high season such as April and May.”
Mr Fri explains that moving all three football teams to play out of the same venue is not feasible due to the number of matches and that the natural grass at the Friends Arena could not sustain such high use. Robert Falck the Chairman of AIK who play at the Friend Arena agrees:
“We have an agreement with the arena and want to play all our home matches on the natural grass at our own home arena, not on Tele2’s artificial grass, period.”
The operator of both of the venues Stockholm Live commented:
“We have just received the happy news and everything is very new. For Tele2 arena and Friends arena, Eurovision falls in the middle of a football season. We start dialogues about when Eurovision wants to enter in such cases and how we can plan around other events. More than that is hard to say”
Loreen won the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden with “Tattoo”. She is the first female two-time winner of the competition, having previously won the 2012 contest with “Euphoria”.
This is Sweden’s seventh Eurovision win, following victories in 1974, 1984, 1991, 1999, 2012 and 2015. This makes Sweden the joint most successful country in Eurovision alongside Ireland. Loreen has also become the first woman and the second person overall to win Eurovision twice.
Image Source: Wikimedia / Julian Herzog | Source: Dagens Nyheter
Sweden debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1958 and has gone on to be one of the contest’s most successful countries. The country has won the contest seven times, the most recent being in 2023. Sweden’s first victory came in 1974 when ABBA won the contest in Brighton with “Waterloo”. Since missing out on the final in 2010, Sweden has gone on to finish 3rd twice and has won the contest twice. Only in 2013 and 2021 did the country place outside of the top 10 in the final.
– ESC 2024 will be in neither of these arenas
– Avicii Arena, not Globen