From Abuse to Unity: National Belonging, and the 2018 Durmaz Affair in Swedish Football

Swedish athletes from ethnic minority backgrounds have increasingly reported experiences of everyday racism and discrimination in sport, with a recurring theme being the questioning of their national identity and authentic "Swedish-ness." These experiences reflect broader patterns of right-wing populism and anti-immigration sentiment in contemporary Sweden, which increasingly permeate sporting contexts. Through qualitative news frame analysis, this article examines the case of Jimmy Durmaz following Sweden's 2018 FIFA World Cup match against Germany. Post-match, Durmaz received an avalanche of online abuse targeting his ethnic origin and questioning his legitimacy to represent Sweden. This incident prompted a national outcry against racism and xenophobia, with print media and the national team mounting a unified anti-racist response. Drawing on the theoretical framework of civic and ethnic nationalism, we demonstrate how the Durmaz case reveals the conditional and performative nature of multicultural acceptance in Swedish sport, where athletes' belonging becomes contingent upon sporting success and conformity to civic ideals. The analysis shows how sporting disappointment, occurring amidst increasingly normalised anti-immigration discourse, activated latent ethnic nationalist anxieties that questioned Durmaz's authentic "Swedish-ness" despite his birth in Sweden and long-standing national team contributions. The swift civic nationalist counter-mobilisation by teammates, media, and political leaders illustrates ongoing tensions between competing conceptions of nationhood in contemporary Sweden. While contemporary Swedish society shows few signs of declining anti-immigration sentiment in either youth or adult sport, the nationwide unified response to such attitudes demonstrates possibilities for collective cultural resistance against exclusionary nationalism. This case illuminates how sporting events can serve as both catalysts for xenophobic backlash and sites of anti-racist solidarity, reflecting broader tensions over national identity and belonging in contemporary European societies.