If the Danish U21 national team in football the summer ends among the four best at the european championship, Denmark is at the same time qualified for the olympic football tournament in Tokyo next year.
But it will not necessarily mean that Denmark is sending a team to Japan.
the Danish sports confederation (DIF), which also acts as the olympic committee is ready to hold fodboldlandsholdet home from the OLYMPICS, if not the clubs showing willingness to send the best players off.
the Reason is that The International Football federation (Fifa) has listed OL-the period in their calendar, and therefore has the clubs the right to refuse their players to participate.
– We think it is wrong that there is no agreement that all of the players who are qualified, can come up with for the OLYMPICS.
– unfortunately, there is not found a solution, and we can be the victim too, just like we were the OLYMPIC games in Rio, says DIF’s president, Niels Nygaard.
Before the games in Rio toppled afbuddene down over the coach Niels Frederiksen, who had to disregard a large number of the players who had secured the OLYMPIC ticket.
Therefore, the DIF proposed changes to the OLYMPIC requirements. This means that you can not take a team if the athletes on the team are of lesser sporting quality, than the teams that qualify.
the Proposal has stirred turmoil in the Dansk Boldspil-Union (DBU), and is taken up on the union’s repræsentantskabsmøde Sunday.
– DBU believes that the proposed changes will have serious consequences for a possible Danish olympic football team, just as it will create unnecessary complications for the summer’s U21-european championship, writes the DBU chairman Jesper Møller, in his chairman’s report.
Before the OLYMPICS in 2016, it was not only Danish players in foreign clubs, who volunteered from.
Also the players from FC Copenhagen, Brøndby and FC Midtjylland was stale, because the three clubs had matches in the european tournaments at the same time with the OLYMPICS.
Although a possible Danish team for the OLYMPICS hardly avoid cancellation next year, will DIF to avoid a repetition of the farce.
– We would like to have more with, than we had in Rio. At the same time, we have an understanding that it probably will not be able to succeed all the way through, says Niels Nygaard.
How many apologies, that should to, before the DIF will consider withdrawing the team from the OLYMPICS, he can not yet put a figure on.
It all depend on a concrete assessment, when we get closer.
– however, I have confidence that we will find a pragmatic solution, providing space for the clubs, but at the same time ensures that we have a good team with. It is not to define the here and now, where the line goes, says Niels Nygaard.
He says that it will be a difficult decision to opt-out of the OLYMPICS. Both because it will disappoint some young football players, and because it will be a bad signal to the outside world from the Danish football.
– In advance it is not the best signals we have sent out from the Danish side, with apologies to the internationals and so on, ” says Nygaard with regard to the past few years landsholdskonflikter for both ladies and gentlemen.
At the OLYMPIC games, there are primarily composed of players born after 1. January 1997. They can be supplemented by a maximum of three older players.
