Ghostwalker Posted July 6, 2009 Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) Following several years of increasing debts Smederna today decided to file for Bankruptcy. Smederna have had financial problems for several years and while the new management led by Club President Jan Åkerviken have tried to solve the situation since he and the club beard was elected in february/march but Svemo decided last week not to approve the application for an Elitlicense. This have meant that Smederna needed urgent funds to be able to continue this season but since main sponsor Ikaros not was able to assist with more funds then they already had put in this was the only thing to do. Smederna will with immediate effect drop out of Elitserien and the riders, who want, should be able to try and find new teams in next weeks transfer window. It is those years that the debts origins from the club was governed by club president Göran Karlsson. So i really hope that his and the rest of the club board's action will be investigated thoroughly because they should not get away with this. All though that wont help Smederna it will be a warning to current and future Presidents/team managements that if you screw around you will be held responsible for it. Initial reports say that the Division 1 team, Team Bikab and the the other junior parts of the club like, the 80cc team and the Speedway Sunday School ("Sladda runt skolan") where kids between 5 and 15 are able to try speedway. Possibly we might see a similar solution like Masarna last season where the elite league went bankrupt and who's place in Allsvenskan was by their division 1 team. The bankruptcy will not affect Smederna's hometrack Smedstadion which is owned by the City of Eskilstuna. Edited July 6, 2009 by Ghostwalker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostwalker Posted July 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 While you cant argue against Svemo's decision regarding the Elitelicense for Smederna , you could say that its not very smart to take this decisions in the middle of the season. As it is now Smederna have dropped out from the remaining part of the season which will affect almost every other team in Elitserien since most teams will loose out on a home meeting which can be a blow to those team economy. I know Västervik had some very tight situation after last season and they will now loose some 400'000-500'000 kr on a lost home meeting. Then the riders most other teams have full teams and are not able to bring in other riders with in the 9 rider limit. IMO I'd like to refine SVEMO's decision making a bit. I would like to see a preliminary decision in the end of June notifying the teams on their situation regarding the license.This would allow the teams to try and raise that kind of money to lets say the last day in October. Reports says that Smederna managed to lower their debts from 3,75 miljoner in March to about 2 millions now so maybe Smederna would have managed to lower their debts even further if they had been able to fullfill the season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iris123 Posted July 6, 2009 Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 Very sad news.Smederna were always my favourite foreign team because of Tommy Jansson.It is still the one stadium i would love to visit to see a speedway meeting with the Blacksmiths on track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostwalker Posted July 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2009 rumours are that SVEMO wanted to get rid of one team so that they could close the Elitleague with no team being demoted/promoted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickthemuppet Posted July 17, 2009 Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 I don't think you can carry on promoting Speedway if you are not paying the riders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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