Two teenagers with guns step into Kämpetorpshallen, in the middle of the impromptu soccer game on Friday night. Leisure leader Saba Abraham, 24, is shot dead in front of shocked teenagers. The safe place, the football field in Hammarby/Stockholm's city project Samhällsmatchen, has turned into a murder scene. How could that happen?
The murder is suspected to be an act of revenge against one of Saba Abraham's relatives. The man is known in gang criminal circles in southern Stockholm and has previously been acquitted of both murder and attempted murder. For a few years now, we have learned that even family and close relatives can become targets.
A friend can become a mortal enemy in one day. The boundaries have been moved or blurred. Teens ready to kill on assignment are lined up. In this case, two unpunished people from another part of the country who are suspected of having traveled to Stockholm to shoot during a soccer practice.
Completely independent of this tragedy, the gangs have been creeping closer and closer to the plan for a long time. The moneybags of top football have lured them into the agency business, where gang criminals and ex-gang criminals have been able to run rampant more or less freely. In my eyes, elite football bears a significant responsibility for the fact that it has become so.
Sometimes I have thought about why we in the media have not paid more attention to projects like Samhällsmatchen.
The association has pretended that it rained, the interest organizations have been lax and the clubs have often been part of the problem. Several of the biggest clubs in the country have actively collaborated with, and enriched, the criminally connected agencies for many years. Others have played along, perhaps because they don't know any better.
As a football lover, it is with sadness that I have followed the development closely. Why is no one standing up? Does it say what it is? Do something?!
But football also has another side. One that tries to counter the very development that other parts of the sport have turned a blind eye to. And it is this bright force that has now been affected by the darkness of gang warfare.
The community match is a project that makes a difference. Hammarby allocates time and resources to contribute and anyone can come and play spontaneous football on Friday evenings. The adult presence is important so that it feels as safe as possible.
Saba Abraham had long been involved. First on Hammarby's side, then as leisure leader for the municipality. In a post on Instagram, when she represented Hammarby, she talked about her motivations. Her passion was helping others, especially young people. In the future, she wanted to study sociology.
"I'm an optimistic person, so I think there's a lot that can be improved. The more young people we reach and who, for example, can find some kind of activity or work through us, the more I think it can reduce, for example, crime," answered Saba Abraham to a question about how Samhällsmatchen could develop.
Sometimes I have thought about why we in the media have not paid more attention to projects like Samhällsmatchen. Maybe the storyline isn't rare enough? That the big 08 clubs make efforts in the suburbs is old cupboard food, isn't it? Yes, well, indeed, but maybe that's exactly why we should write about it, because it goes on week after week, year after year.
Now the spotlight is coming from all sorts of directions, but for all the wrong reasons.
"I want to leave a footprint that will benefit our youth in society," Saba Abraham said in another response to that Insta interview.
Maybe one day she will be right. Maybe the attention will make Samhällsmatchen come out stronger on the other side of the tragedy. But we know nothing about that, and Saba Abraham will never experience it.
