Lise Klaveness, Norwegian Football Association | Norway is struggling. Lise Klaveness points to Sweden: – We have seen how bad things can get

ULLEVAAL STADION (Nettavisen). A large class divide has arisen in Oslo. This is shown by several cases VG has written recently.

Oslo-West is the big winner, while Oslo-East is constantly falling further and further behind in what the newspaper refers to as “The divided football city”.

Where the clubs in the west can boast winter-open courts and expensive training facilities, there are large districts on the eastern edge that do not have a single court with underfloor heating to keep the activity going. Football in Oslo is labeled as a “sossesport”.

As a result, more and more young people – both boys and girls – fall outside football on the eastern edge. The lack of such a leisure arena in resource-poor areas of the capital is linked, among other things, to increasing youth crime.

President of the Norwegian Football Association, Lise Klaveness, has heard the debate. She is clear that football can and should be a solution to the class divide in the capital, but that concrete measures are required for this to become a reality.

– Football is a big part of the solution

On Tuesday, representatives from the football association will meet with people from the Ministry of Culture to discuss a plan.

Klaveness is mostly concerned with how football can be used as a social arena for children and young people, and not quite so interested in discussing who has the best academies and where in Oslo you must live in order to become the best possible football player.

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– I believe that football alone is not the solution, but it is a large part of the solution. We know that, she says to Nettavisen.

– We see that at Romsås, among other things, where Adnan Naeem, who was voted this year’s firebrand, works, runs and sits on the board. He is a police officer and tells us that the most effective tool he and his colleagues have is to get people into football, says Klaveness.

Getting young people who struggle with various things into football has proven to be an effective tool, believes the football president.

– But it does something with what you need in terms of voluntary muscles. There may be a culture, structure and people working double shifts in an area where resources are generally low, and then it is difficult to bring in volunteers. We know football works, but it is difficult to operate there.

– Worrying development

Klaveness believes that the Norwegian Football Association must now take its share of the responsibility to ensure better opportunities for everyone.

– We have to go within ourselves and be even more tailored towards those areas, but we need funding, quite simply. We need help, because volunteering costs money, so we can get very focused help in there, says the football president.

She is aware that the situation is critical and that it does not only apply to Oslo.

– There are some really worrying developments in the big cities in Norway. And then we can discuss what we have done and what has gone wrong. But dragging the debate over to us pointing at each other is not, from my perspective, that interesting.

– Then I think; where will we be in five years? If we don’t make a real lift and a real change, it will be much worse.

Points to “Swedish conditions”

According to the 43-year-old, there is clear evidence that football has a unique position compared to other social arenas.

– I don’t meet anyone in football or politics who doesn’t think that football is a very important tool. I think everyone sees that. You see it in refugee camps, where football has a completely different effect than, for example, athletics or school for that matter, where you don’t know a language.

Klaveness points, among other things, to what has happened in Sweden. Malmö has for many years struggled with youth crime, but there they have used football precisely as a tool to prevent these problems in society.

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– It works very well, but it is difficult to operate when the youth situation becomes sharper and more hardened. And the differences increase and there are more segregated areas. Sweden has gone ahead of us. We are so privileged that we can see how bad things can get.

– We want to do something about it now, together with the public and the private sector. I think that’s the key here. And that we have some projects earmarked through football, with facilities and more people on post, in strategically selected areas.

This is precisely what will be discussed in more detail with the Ministry of Culture this week.

– We must also go within ourselves, in this, believes Klaveness.

– In the meeting, we will present our diagnosis, how we think football can be used even more effectively. It is good that VG focuses on this, but the media focus will always be something else. What do we mean that can do something? Do the club structures know anything about this? What will work? And what can be effective partial solutions? asks the football president.

Must present project

In the first instance, the Norwegian Football Association wishes to present a project with a laser aim at Oslo.

– Where there are resource-poor areas, where we can use the club structures to capture more people, really, in a better way.

– But if you only discuss quality, that it is too expensive – the quality must be good and it will cost money. But the question is, is it the volunteering that will bear that cost? What if you don’t have the volunteerism, who will bear the cost?

– The quality is what ensures that young people get on the right track. You have to have quality sportsmanship, soccer teams must be there, there must be enough adults and, not least, there must be pitches, and there must be under-heating, emphasizes Klaveness.

She further points out that it must be an offer that is available all year round, and not just in the summer months.

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– In Norway, you don’t have many months of summer conditions and you lose your youth if you can’t cook anything. We have to have a club house, so that they have a place, there are often cramped apartments and it is not always so cool to bring the team home. It can be a barrier.

The fact that certain areas in Oslo have academies and more organized conditions, Klaveness believes, is not the main point of the discussion.

– We know that it works to make the campfire, but it has become more difficult to do so. Football is a social tool and then you can’t compare it to the competition, which is the glue that inspires the social part. Then you can’t say, why do they have academies, that dream will always be there, that competition will always be there, and of course it should be reasonable and such, but the money that is thereis not what hinders football heresays the president of the football association.

Jaffery: – We shouldn’t have it this way

Culture and Equality Minister Lubna Jaffery has promised VG that there will be an improvement.

Among other things, she tells the newspaper that the government has set aside NOK 225 million in the past year, which has been earmarked for clubs in low-income areas. 100 of these millions will be ticking into the club’s accounts these days, according to Jaffery.

– This is money we know works. There is obviously a need for more going forward, she says.

The minister is shaken by what has emerged in VG’s investigations recently.

– I am reacting to what is revealed in the investigations by VG. This shows a divided city, where sports cannot be practiced under fair conditions. This is not how we should have it in Norway, she tells the newspaper.

– All children and young people who want it should have the opportunity to participate in sports, regardless of where they live and their parents’ income.