Demonstrations started relatively peacefully just before Norway’s national football team faced Israel’s in Oslo on Saturday, but by the time they reached Ullevaal Stadium they’d turned violent. Police ended up resorting to tear gas and arresting 22 people in and around the stadium area, before Norway defeated Israel by a score of 5-0.
The World Cup qualifier between Norway and Israel was controversial and many thought it should have been cancelled. PHOTO: NewsinEnglish.no/Morten Møst
The demonstrations had begun both in the city center and in the university area, and had even been toned down after a tentative peace pact was reached late last week between Israel and the Palestinian organization Hamas. Demonstrators then began marching to Ullevaal Stadium, with many dropping out along the way.
Security at the stadium was massive, even shocking football officials and team members when they arrived on their bus. “I was really taken aback by it,” head coach Ståle Solbakken said at a press conference after the match, referring to all the police cars, police on horseback, riot control vehicles and even snipers on the roof of the stadium. The airspace over Oslo was also closed off through the weekend. The entire area around the stadium had been blocked off long before the match began and everyone entering went through stringent security control.
“It was painful to see,” Solbakken said, calling it an “enormous apparatus” that he wishes hadn’t been necessary. “This is not how it should be” around a football match, he added. Asked how the players felt about it, Solbakken said he thought everyone was thinking the same as him, “but they’re all so deep into the bubble (around the match) that it’s first afterwards that you think extra about it.”
Flares and lots of noise were already in use as one parade left downtown. When demonstrators arrived at the stadium and some crossed police lines, the trouble began. PHOTO: NewsinEnglish.no/Morten Møst
Since demonstrations were expected before the match began, the entire portion of the stadium where the teams come and go had been entirely sealed off to everyone apart from players and their support apparatus. One of the team’s star players, Patrick Berg of Bodø/Glimt that’s now playing in the Champions League, told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) that it was “already clear at our hotel that there would be extra security around this match.”
He added that “for the Norwegian public in general, I think it must have been a very unusual situation to come to Ullevaal and see police wherever you looked.” He said he’d feared for his family at one point, because they’d be among the roughly 20,000 people in the grandstands.
“But my feeling is that both the police and NFF (the Norwegian Football Federation) had taken the match seriously and done all they could to give everyone who was here a good experience,” he told NRK. As violence rose outside the stadium, also throughout the match, there was only one incident of trouble inside. A man ran onto the field around 10 minutes after play had begun, but he was quickly subdued by security guards and taken away. There also were some shouts of “Free Palestine” from the grandstands during the match, and booing but Israel’s goalkeeper Daniel Peretz told news bureau NTB they’d expected such bad behaviour. “We were prepared for it,” he told NTB. “It’s become part of our reality today. We came to play football.”
NFF President Lise Klaveness is known for speaking her mind. She’s shown here during her debut at the FIFA Congress in Qatar in 2022, when she criticized alleged corruption and human rights abuses in connection with construction of tournament preparations there. Now Qatar has been part of the ceasefire worked out between Israel and Hamas. PHOTO: FIFA video grab
The controversy and violence all stemmed from Israel’s alleged genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, after the Palestinians’ Hamas had carried out a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians two years ago. NFF’s president Lise Klaveness had “personally” thought Israel should be suspended from international football like Russia has been over its war on Ukraine, and was most concerned about protecting Norway’s players “so they can concentrate on football.”
At a pre-match press conference on Friday Klaveness challenged claims from her Israeli counterpart Moshe Zuares that she hadn’t condemned Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023. “I did that when it happened, I did that on the first anniversary (of the attack) and on Tuesday (last week),” she said. “I do that every time I meet him (Zuares).” She added that she has felt “deep sympathy” for the Israelis after the attacks.
Asked why NFF had chosen to donate profits from Saturday’s World Cup qualifier to the humanitarian organization Leger Uten Grenser in Norway (Doctors Without Borders), Klaveness said she and her colleagues knew the match would be “difficult” and that some Norwegian fans and other spectators might be hesitant to attend. She claimed it wasn’t meant to provoke anyone, only to offer humanitarian aid. She also hoped that the new ceasefire will cool off the controversy.
Most of those arrested during Saturday evening’s demonstration were released from custody by Monday but many were slapped with fines as high as NOK 18,000 (USD 1,800) for failing to obey police orders.
The match itself was an enormous victory for the Norwegians, even though captain and superstar player Martin Ødegaard along with Leo Østigård were out with injuries. They attended anyway in a show of support for the team, watching from the stands. Their fellow Norwegian superstar Erling Braut Haaland, who had taken over as team captain in Ødegaard’s absence, scored three times, including his 51st in national team action, while Israeli players kicked the ball two times into their own goal. That left Norway with a 5-0 shutout and still at the top of their World Cup qualifier group.
That bodes well for play in the World Cup itself, with some football experts now claiming that Norway is among the top teams in Europe at present. Earlier defeats and all the controversy over the match against Israel seemed forgotten amidst victory celebrations. Norway’s national team now seems united and spirits were high in the locker room, according to a few videos that have been published on social media.
Haaland also received high marks not only for his scoring but for stepping in as captain and motivating teammates. Coach Solbakken, often viewed as hard to please, was also relieved and proud, even urging his players to “go out and celebrate” for once. Asked by NRK whether Norway was now ready for the World Cup, though, Solbakken said, “no, we’re not. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here. But I can say we’re closer.”
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund