A marketing gimmick or a genuine cry for help?

Imagine you are the chairman of a football club that won the domestic league a month back and were knocked out of the Champions League Round of 32 by Manchester City a few days ago. What would you be addressing your staff right now? Probably how you need to work towards building a better squad for a more fruitful next season. Well, that wasn't the case for Peter Bronsman, the Chairman of Kopparbergs Goteborg FC who happen to be the current champions of Damallsvenskan, the Swedish Women's Football League.

On 29th of December, Bronsman informed his staff that the club was no longer continuing its elite team and was looking at a possible dissolution. The news was a shock not just to the staff and players but to almost every citizen of Sweden and other Sports enthusiasts across the continent. There was a lot of concerns raised, disappointment shown, and the management also received a lot of backlash from the media and the audience as well. The club maintained the stand that existing as solely a top tier women's club was no longer compatible with 2021.

Established in 2003 as the sole women's club in the city of Goteborg, was nothing less than a legendary club when it came to the women's game. But currently, the 4 big Men's teams in the city have begun their own women's team. The club has in the past few years been trashed by teams like Lyon and Manchester City who didn't have a women's team 5 years ago. But because of the money available at their disposal because of their extremely popular men's counterparts, these clubs have grown leaps and bounds in a small period of time. A club representative even went on to say that the club did its duty by creating enough role models and giving opportunities for girls to start playing the sport when there was no other alternative, but now it was time for them to shut shop.

This whole incident created a lot of chaos within the Swedish media. People were talking about it on social media, experts debated over it on radio and television and some even went on to say this was just a marketing gimmick for the club to raise more money. Believe it or not, within the next few days existing sponsors poured in more money, new sponsors approached the club with opportunities and the club came eventually came out saying it has survived to live another day.

In the end, it was a happy ending to the story but it makes us wonder was it after all a marketing gimmick or was it a genuine cry for help? Honestly, no matter what it was, it was a victory for the women's sport and that's all that matters.