Football has the Lennart Johansson Trophy.
The idea that handball will now rename its SM dent into the Bengt Johansson Cup has now been born.
– It’s a good idea, says Adam Engstrom, competition director at the Swedish Handball Federation.
This came on Monday, on the death of the former captain of the national handball team, Bengt Johansson, after a long struggle with illness.
On the same evening, his memory in connection with the semi-finals of the Swedish Championship was honored with a minute of silence and mourning ribbons around the arms of the players and referees.
men Swedish Handball Federation He wants to do more to honor Johansson’s memory.
We obviously want to honor Bengt more. It’s the biggest we have, said union general secretary Robert Wedberg.
Creating a scholarship is not uncommon, as the association has done in the past.
Journalist Christopher Ekmark yesterday launched another idea on Twitter, which quickly went viral: renaming the SM Handball Dent to the Bengt Johansson Cup.
Herrallsvenskan dent has been dubbed Lennart Johansson for over 20 years, although Johansson didn’t die until 2019.
No walking cup really
“It’s a good idea by the person who asked the question,” comments Adam Engstrom, the association’s competition director.
The union will, of course, speak to the Johansson family first and hear what they want, after which it will be the union council that will decide how to honor Bengt’s long-term memory.
If the family thinks he’s OK and the board says yes, that’s certainly a good suggestion, says Wedberg.
Unlike the Lennart Johansson Cup, the Sweden Handball Championship is not a hiking prize.
— but it’s clearly possible to put a name on the dent anyway, says Engstrom.
Decisions can be made as soon as possible at the Board of Directors meeting on May 24. It is therefore not appropriate that the reversal raised by season-winning SM was called the Bengt Johansson Cup at the time.
