Width drama: – No dialogue

Before Friday’s press conference on the reopening of the country, there was great excitement about the relief that came for grassroots sports.

At the end of April, Minister of Culture and Gender Equality Abid Raja said VG that he hoped for a reopening of grassroots sports on May 24. That statement gave many thousands of active in wide football hope after 14 months of closure.

But where the 2nd division got the green light for training matches in stage two of the reopening plan, it became clear that grassroots sports will not be exempted from the distance rule. Thus, the disappointment was great all over the country.

– The fact that 22 football players on a football field can not be away from each other while you can drink “dritings” until 12 o’clock on a patio, it is completely incomprehensible to understand simply, said Dan Jøran Hafsås, coach for Eid Football in Nordfjordeid to Dagbladet on Friday.

– Big disappointment

The message was also met with great disappointment in NFF’s premises at Ullevaal.

– We are very disappointed that no one makes an exception to the one-meter rule for wide players over 20 years. It was a big disappointment. We had expected an opening now, especially since Raja and Høie have stated in the media that it would come in step two, says director of development and activity in NFF, Alf Hansen, to Dagbladet.

He further says that they were uncertain as there was nothing specific about the exception to the one-meter rule in the government’s plan for step two.

Hansen says that the football association has tried to establish a dialogue with the health authorities about a reopening of wide football.

– We have come up with several proposals for opening wide football in a safe way, including through a traffic light model. We have presented the Olsvik report and developed protocols on how we could solve an opening in an infection-safe way, Hansen says and continues:

– No dialogue

– We are therefore very disappointed not to have had any dialogue on the professional solutions we have come up with. We have hoped to have a dialogue, and at least an explanation of what trumps our professional solutions. Our impression is that it has been predetermined and that we are prioritized at the back of the queue, and that the authorities have not been willing to dialogue.

– So you have not had any dialogue with the health authorities before Friday’s reopening?

– No, we have not had. They have not been willing to have any dialogue to look at either a traffic light model for grassroots sports or the recommendations in the Olsvik report as a tool for how they can open grassroots football, Hansen tells Dagbladet.

The Olsvik report was presented in February and concludes that a reopening of ordinary training in grassroots football can be carried out “without significant impact on the contagion pressure in society”.