Erna Solberg is punished after the World Cup play: – Cursed tone-deaf

– Cursed tone deaf, to be completely honest. It is entirely possible to cheer on the national team and to be for a boycott anyway, says spokesman Ole Kristian Sandvik in the Norwegian Supporter Alliance (NSA) to VG.

Before Norway went out on the Ullevaal mat and took one step closer to the World Cup in Qatar, the former prime minister went out to VG and promoted a desire to put the debate on boycott dead.

– I think it’s time to put that debate aside and rather spend time cheering on the boys. And to give them credit for making important markings for human rights and against racism, the Conservative leader said before the international match against Latvia which ended 0-0.

The debate about Norway should boycott the world championship has in football Norway been primarily active since the Guardian article about 6,000 dead and Tromsø’s subsequent boycott proposal in February.

In addition to the deaths in Qatar, there has recently been a wealth of evidence of both corruption and human rights violations in connection with the championship.

– Uncritical cheering

Thanks to help from Montenegro, the World Cup hope for Norway lives on, but Solberg’s statement does not sit well with Sandvik in the NSA.

– What she says appears to be that there is zero critical thinking. It appears that she wants an uncritical cheerleading gang.

Nor is NRK Sport’s commentator Jan Petter Saltvedt further impressed by the Conservative leader’s proposal.

– I think it is strange when she first says something about this, which many have been waiting for quite some time, then she chooses that opportunity and not least that message. Which I think is untimely, most of all. I think it is disappointing, Saltvedt says to VG.

As recently as June this year voted an extraordinary football thing no to a boycott of the championship, something also Erna Solberg refers to in her response to the criticism.

– Then the sports democracy has spoken, and I spoke in VG yesterday that that decision is respected and that we now put the question of Norwegian boycott behind us. At the same time, the discussion about human rights and the uncovering of corruption must of course continue. But the championship is in a year, and I believe that our boys will participate if we are so skilled and lucky that we manage to qualify, Solberg writes in an e-mail to VG.

– The sport itself that must decide

Solberg’s proposals also meet with opposition in political circles. Among other things from SV leader Audun Lysbakken.

Lysbakken, like former Prime Minister Solberg Bergen, is a Brann supporter. But that’s where the similarity stops.

– I react to the tone of the interview. It could be read that there is a contradiction between being for a boycott and cheering on the national team. Those who have driven the boycott campaign are, on the contrary, the most ardent supporters in Norway. They have raised this because they love football so much and do not want it to be abused by regimes like Qatar, Lysbakken writes in an SMS to VG.

Minister of Culture Anette Trettebergstuen (Labor Party), who also has the government’s responsibility for sports, does not think Erna Solberg has anything to do with stopping the debate about the Qatar World Cup.

– It is the sport itself that must decide whether a boycott is the right tool, and it is also they who must decide when the discussion should end – neither Erna Solberg nor I, Trettebergstuen writes in an e-mail to VG.

In his response, Solberg highlights the role of politicians.

– Then I think we have to learn from what has happened and make sure that we make completely different demands going forward to the international football organizations. And we as politicians must be part of pushing that bit: That we make very clear ethical demands around who is allowed to arrange championships in the future. The World Cup or the Olympics should not be an arena for corrupt and oppressive regimes to wash themselves in sports.