Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The torment of a Danish soccer player

Once again we will look at one of the historical cases where xenophobia against a Dane reached the Danish public.

A Danish foot-ball players was convicted because he drove a car in the same city, where a traffic accident occurred.

Mads Timm is a young foot-ball player which played for Manchester United. About January 2004 he drove home from training. A team-mates also decided drive home at the same time and became involved in an accident where a disrespectful woman maneuvered her car so that the team-mate hit her car.

Because Mr. Timm was a foreigner in the same town where the accident occurred he of cause was the first to blame. By a act of unjust he was convicted to serve 12 months at a young offenders' institute. In May 2006 he returned to civilization and started to play for a Danish football club, where he first was quiet successful.

He has since retired from soccer.

The Danish population regards this event as a typically sick act of xenophobia against Danish citizens.

Not only was his driving rather typical for how Danes use roads in our country. Second his car was not involved in the actual accident. He was simply not at the crash scene. Regardless of these fact he got the most severe sentence.

Danes are adviced not to drive in the United Kingdom if they cannot avoid to work or study there.

Sources:
Man Utd player jailed over crash, BBC, March 3, 2005
Prison term gives chastened Timm a new perspective, by Daniel Taylor, The Guardian, February 1, 2006
Mads Timm - Wikipedia