FOOTBALL IN...
NORWAY With the Norwegian league season set to kick off in April, SoccerexPro takes a look at football in one of the world’s northernmost nations.
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orway is a winter sports haven, as might be expected of a country northern enough to breach the Arctic Circle. Yet football is played more widely here than any other sport, and is the most-watched sport on television after the decidedly snowier pursuits of biathlon and cross-country skiing. Football in Norway is generally kept clear of the cold, with the league season running from April to November. The professional game is headed up by the 16-team Tippeligaen – as the top-tier Eliteserien, or ‘Elite League’, has been RIĂ€ FLDOO\ FDOOHG IRU VSRQVRUVKLS UHDVRQV VLQFH 7KH WRS Ă LJKW ZDV NQRZQ DV the 1. Divisjon until then, having been established as a single ten-team league in 1963. Before that, the Hovedserien (‘Main League’) and the Norgesserien (League of Norway) had brought together the best teams from the country’s regional leagues.
The second tier took on the 1. Divisjon name as the top tier surrendered it, and is also comprised of 16 teams. Below that, the 2. Divisjon and 3. Divisjon are divided into regional groups. Teams throughout the pyramid have contested the Norwegian Football Cup since 1902. Norway also boasts one of the world’s leading women’s professional leagues, the 12-team Toppserien. Elite women’s football is strong in Norway, with the national team having won the Fifa Women’s World Cup in 1995 and Olympic gold at Sydney 2000. They have enjoyed even greater success in the Uefa Women’s European Championship, winning twice and reaching a further IRXU À QDOV VLQFH WKH LQDXJXUDO RIÀ FLDO tournament in 1984. The men’s team have proved more inconsistent through the decades, rarely matching even the modest
Broadcast The Tippeligaen is currently broadcast domestically on pay-TV channel TV2, which signed a three-year deal worth a reported US$270 million in late 2011. That contract runs until the end of the 2016 season. The Toppserien is carried on free-to-air network NRK. The Swedish-headquartered Modern Times Group holds the rights to the Uefa Champions League throughout Scandinavia, with games screened in Norway by TV3 Norway and Viasat 4. There has been plenty of competition in recent years for the rights to international football. In 2013 SBS Discovery nabbed coverage of the qualiďŹ ers for Uefa Euro 2016 and the 2018 Fifa World Cup, which are being shown on its TV Norge and Max channels. It also took the rights to four years of Norway friendly matches in May 2014. NRK and TV2, meanwhile, will show Euro 2016 itself. TV2 picked up a distribution deal with Real Madrid TV after the Spanish club signed 16-year-old Martin Ă˜degaard (right) in January.
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achievements of neighbours Sweden and Denmark. Ranked 76 in the world at the time SoccerexPro went to SUHVV 1RUZD\ KDYH QRW TXDOLÀ HG IRU a major tournament since Uefa Euro 2000. They have played in three Fifa World Cups – in 1938, 1994 and 1998 – with their participation in major tournaments coinciding with their most successful periods in the game. Norway won bronze at the 1936 Olympics while their team in the 1990s was coached by Egil Olsen, purveyor of a prosaic but productive direct style of play. The Norwegian Football Association, or Norges Fotballforbund (NFF), was founded in 1902 and became a Fifa member in 1908. Former Sogndal Fotball director Yngve Hallèn was elected president in 2010, while general secretary Kjetil Siem served as the chief executive of South Africa’s Premier Soccer League from 2007 to 2010.