Fredriksson, Eric

In the championships of Sweden he played 167 matches (1971-1988). Held 45 matches of national teams (1974-1989). 48 European Cup matches (1975-1989): Chief Referee of the KECH-84 Final, European Super Cup 1988.

He judged as the main referee matches Euro-84 in France (Belgium-Yugoslavia), World Cup-82 (Yugoslavia-Northern Ireland), World Cup-86 (Italy-Bulgaria, USSR-Belgium), World Cup-90 (Argentina-USSR).

He went down in history as a judge who made a number of gross mistakes (which became productive) in relation to the USSR national football team at two world championships. On the fact of controversial and clearly erroneous moments, Fredriksson himself did not give any comments.

USSR-Belgium (1986 World Cup)

In the match between the USSR and Belgium (World Cup 86), an offside by the Belgian team was not recorded twice in regular time. Both points led to goals against the Soviet team. The side referee of the match, who, when he first scored the goal of the Soviet team, initially recorded an offside position, but after a few minutes dropped the flag as if nothing had happened, was eventually disqualified. The chief referee of the match was assigned to the final match of the World Cup 86 as a side referee.

Vladimir Bessonov :

Everything was like in a bad dream: Kulemans, to whom the ball was sent riding in an arc, was about a meter behind me. To make his “offside” position even more obvious, I took several steps forward. When the Belgian captain took the ball, the side referee Sanchez instantly tossed up the flag, fixing the offside position.

But Kulemans, as if knowing that Fredriksson did not pay attention to it, just struck. The Swedish judge calmly pointed to the center. And Sanchez hastily lowered the flag ... ^[1]

Alexander Lvov:

The Spanish referee, like his colleague in the field, had already given occasion to doubt his decency. At the 55th minute, Shifo , who received a pass from Verkoteren, spent the first return ball, being in a quite noticeable offside. More than a dozen times I watched a video replay of this episode with our leading referees, and not one of them confirmed the correctness of the goal scored.

Already at the airport, an hour before the national team left for home, I asked the head of the State Sports Committee's Football Department Vyacheslav Koloskov , who accompanied us, how it could turn out that one of the referees of the match with the Belgians was the representative of Spain, whose team we could meet in the next match. I did not receive an intelligible answer.

Agree, it is quite acceptable that Sanchez was interested in defeating the Soviet team, whose chances at the championship were quoted much higher than the Belgian one. ^[one]

However, it is worth noting that Spain later lost to Belgium in the penalty shootout.

Argentina-USSR (World Cup 1990)

In the match Argentina-USSR (World Cup-90), the referee, standing on the front line when cornering in the 10th minute of the match and facing the events taking place in the penalty area of ​​the Argentina national team, did not record a hand game from Diego Maradona , who thus rendered the ball out of the goal after hitting the head of Oleg Kuznetsov . Obviously feeling that he had made a mistake, Fredriksson after a few minutes did not put a 100% penalty on the Soviet team when Kanija was demolished at the entrance to the penalty area. Nevertheless, the demoralized footballers of the USSR team could not gather strength, having missed 2 goals due to their own mistakes.

The delegation of the USSR national football team on an episode with a hand game filed a protest after the match. ^[2]

Nikita Simonyan (head of the Soviet delegation who filed a protest at FIFA after the USSR-Argentina match, World Cup in Italy, 1990):

At the beginning, we simply filed a written protest with the FIFA committee regarding the biased refereeing of Fredriksson in the USSR-Argentina match, but then we made an open appeal to the press:

- If Fredriksson was an honest man, he would have to pack his bags, burn his referee license and leave football forever

^[2]

Other errors

Fredriksson was a participant in yet another memorable conflict at the World Championships : at the World Cup 82, it was his hesitant go-ahead with a flag (Fredriksson was a side judge) that caused the scandalous events during the France-Kuwait match. The French scored the 4th goal (the score so far was 3-1). According to Kuwaitis, offside. The victims refused to throw the ball from the center, and a couple of minutes later a sheikh came down from the rostrum to the coaching bench of the Asian team - the brother of the head of state and part-time president of the national football federation. At his insistence, the Kuwait team defiantly left the field. After lengthy proceedings, the game was resumed. By coincidence, the main referee of the game was precisely the Soviet referee Miroslav Stupar ). ^[3]

• Savin A.V. Players, coaches, fate. - M .: Terra-sport, Olympia Press, 2001. - 664 with ISBN 5-93127-139-2