The Swedish licenses in changing

Sweden has for some years had a very generous agreement with the Swedish federation according to licenses for national and foreign riders. But thoose days are over. During the end of last year it was clear to all Swedish license holders of any motorsport within SVEMO – the Swedish federation, that changes were about to take place. Not only technical ones but also the fees. For the Swedish flat track riders the pricing almost doubled, but not the service though. Flat track in Sweden had during 2024, 43 licensed riders and some riders who raced flat track with their license for other motorcyclesports within SVEMO. That possiblity is also gone and the Swedish flat trackers are now in the same system as everyone else within SVEMO.

The possibility to race in Sweden with a national EU license is also gone and at the moment there is no possibility to sign up with a-single-race-license. This means that Sweden is now joining the same system as Norway and Finland already have, which means that everyone from outside the Nordic countrys (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) need an international FIM-license to race in Sweden.

This is not good news according to trying to get the sport grow and getting better by supporting the participation of foreign riders. Representatives for the Swedish flat track community has trying to accomplish same system as used in for example Germany, Netherlands and UK. There they have a race specifik license which you can buy for one specific race. This system works very well and doesnt force any rider who just wanna race one or two races, outside their own country, to buy a full international yearly license. Theese are often very expensive and as flat track still is full of amateurs without any sponsors or compensation from a club for racing, every penny counts.

As argument for raising the fees SVEMO claimed that the earlier fees was just temporary and since that decision was made five years ago it was time for flat track riders to take part of a more equal system.

According to SVEMO 27% of the license is insurance of the rider 33 % is to make the sport specific section (in this case Track Racing) work and the rest 40 % is salaries for the office staff.

Svemo also states that within each sport specific section money uses to arrange practices, camps and races, elite, leagues and costs for digital systems, which only in one case benefits flat track. People to call and get help from. The riders are connected to the digital system but with very few options. Flat track have no sign up system nor system for results and so on, This means that each organiser does that work for free and than serve SVEMO with results and entrys.

There is still no education specificly for flat track as it comes to marshals, judges etc. Briefly they, as we understand, ad it into to rest, but mostly the riders and organisers are left on their own not only keeping track of the adminstrative, inspections, entry reports and also sometimes helping the judges follow the specific flat track rules. The rules written in the Rulebook was a joint volunteer work of the Swedish flat track community and Svemo just more or less added it into the already excisting rulebook as a new chapter 15.

Åke Jansson from Örebro club Vikingarna went all they way up in the federation hierarchy, trying to get the responsibles changing their mind about raising the licence fee, but so far he had no luck. Joined by representatives from us, Scandinavian Flat Track, as well as Vetlanda club – Vetlanda Motorsällskap, the last meeting was all about the raised fees, and the answer from federation was still the same.

The raise might not effect already “addicted” ones, but it might slow down the positive trend of getting more riders to try this habit forming art. Time will tell. But since flat track now doesn’t have any special “fast developing lane” at the federation, maybe its time for the Swedish flat track community to get properly organized and decide togheter what to work with and how to approach the federation in the interest of the sport.