Dad leaves son in the cold for 'playing like crap'
A 10-year-old boy was left outside in the cold wearing only a shorts and t-shirt in Uppsala in eastern Sweden on Saturday evening after his father felt the boy didn't deserve a ride home to Stockholm because he "played like crap" in a floorball tournament.
The lonely boy was standing outside the Fyrishov arena when the coach of senior floorball team Sirius came by to drop off some match equipment in the arena.
Coach Conny Eriksson told the boy to go inside since it was "seven - eight degrees below freezing outside" but discovered the boy was still there ten minutes later.
The boy then told Eriksson his father had left him there in just shorts and t-shirt.
"It's so cruel, these things can't happen. You don't leave your child in another city and then go home," coach Conny Eriksson told local daily Uppsala Nya Tidning, UNT.
However, the concerned coach was then able to phone the father and asked what was going on.
"But he didn't think that was any of my business and said that 'the boy played like crap and that he could walk home'."
"This is child abuse," Eriksson told UNT.
Since the father refused to make the roughly 70 kilometre return trip from his home in Stockholm to get his son, Eriksson was instead forced to get a hold of parents of one of the boy's teammates who came to pick him up.
The head of the tournament, Peter Wennberg, was livid when he was informed on Saturday evening of what had happened.
"The father's response alone is despicable," he told the paper.
"How can one do something like this? I feel sorry for the kid to have to come home to that parent."
Wennberg also questioned why the coaches of the boy's team didn't stay to make sure everyone had a ride home.
In the 19 years the tournament has been played, Wennberg said he had never seen anything like this.
"But unfortunately there are these kinds of parents," he said.
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The lonely boy was standing outside the Fyrishov arena when the coach of senior floorball team Sirius came by to drop off some match equipment in the arena.
Coach Conny Eriksson told the boy to go inside since it was "seven - eight degrees below freezing outside" but discovered the boy was still there ten minutes later.
The boy then told Eriksson his father had left him there in just shorts and t-shirt.
"It's so cruel, these things can't happen. You don't leave your child in another city and then go home," coach Conny Eriksson told local daily Uppsala Nya Tidning, UNT.
However, the concerned coach was then able to phone the father and asked what was going on.
"But he didn't think that was any of my business and said that 'the boy played like crap and that he could walk home'."
"This is child abuse," Eriksson told UNT.
Since the father refused to make the roughly 70 kilometre return trip from his home in Stockholm to get his son, Eriksson was instead forced to get a hold of parents of one of the boy's teammates who came to pick him up.
The head of the tournament, Peter Wennberg, was livid when he was informed on Saturday evening of what had happened.
"The father's response alone is despicable," he told the paper.
"How can one do something like this? I feel sorry for the kid to have to come home to that parent."
Wennberg also questioned why the coaches of the boy's team didn't stay to make sure everyone had a ride home.
In the 19 years the tournament has been played, Wennberg said he had never seen anything like this.
"But unfortunately there are these kinds of parents," he said.
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