ABBA were prevented from recording a World Cup song for the England national soccer team, former manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has claimed.
ABBA are back! / Picture Credit: Baillie Walsh
The 73-year-old coach who, like ABBA, also hails from Sweden, claims Benny Andersson offered to pen the track for free, but the Football Association declined because the pop icons were not English.
Appearing on TV show 'Good Morning Britain' to talk about this year’s 'Soccer Aid', Sven explained that the unlikely offer came about after they attempted to take advantage of his former assistant Tord Gripp's close friendship with Benny.
'GMB' host Kate Garraway said: “I was surprised to hear ... you at one point had talked to ABBA about recording a World Cup song for England.”
Eriksson then explained how the potentially bizarre collaboration had first been suggested.
He said: “I worked together with Tord Grip, and he’s a close friend of ABBA's Benny Andersson.
"One day, we phoned up Benny and asked, ‘Would you like to do an England song before the big tournament?
"I think it was a World Cup.
“And then I went to the board of the FA and told them, ‘ABBA is willing to do the song,' and they said, ‘No. We cannot use Swedish singers doing that song.
"It must be an English' [artist]. So that was a pity but I can understand it.”
This week, ABBA - which consists of Benny, Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad - announced their first new album for 40 years and a unique new stage show.
The LP 'Voyage' will be released on November 5 and two new songs have been unveiled; ‘I Still Have Faith In You’ and Don’t Shut Me Down’.
The concert experience ABBA Voyage will open on 27 May, 2022 at the purpose-built 3,000 capacity ABBA Arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and will see Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid perform digitally as "ABBA-tars" along with a 10-piece live band.
The four musicians spent five weeks performing all 22 songs in the 90-minute setlist in order for their crew to capture every mannerism and motion with performance capture techniques to then recreate the foursome how they looked in 1979.
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