According to sports president Kjøll, the legal fees for Norwegian sports in the much-discussed whistle-blowing case amount to NOK 1,120,590. So far. Added to this are practical expenses in connection with travel and compensation for involved and sports board members. And then money has been spent on PR assistance for the NIF management. The latter can quickly add up to a six-figure sum. The question is whether there shouldn’t have been even more. For today’s meeting with the media, there was no confidence-inspiring performance from a hard-pressed sports president. Which in the end had also decided to spend even more sports kroner on cleaning up internal problems. Yes, that money Berit Kjøll had to defend expenses, she had to defend the soundness of the process, and she had to explain her view when asked by Dagbladet whether it is not fundamentally problematic that an administratively employed leader informs an elected member of the sports board. Her answer was that it depended on the situation. Kjøll also had to answer whether she regretted her handling of the case. She didn’t. LAWYER’S HELP: Kjøll had lawyer Fougner on her heels when she came out of the meeting room. Photo: Hanne Skjellum / news Kjøll was also asked a number of other questions, but strikingly often the hired labor law lawyer Jan Fougner took the floor. Including when it came to a report that was commissioned on the back of the original notification back in December – which was long before Fougner was involved in this case. Fougner is also part of the total cost, but today he stood up for free for the sport, sports president Kjøll told questions from news. This was one of the few times Fougner looked away during the press session. Action before words The origin of the matter is a telephone conversation in December 2022 between the whistleblower, who works in the administration of the Norwegian Sports Confederation, and the whistleblower, who sits on the elected Sports Board. What makes the whole conversation special is that it took place via the telephone of Berit Kjøll, who thus ended up as the only witness to what happened. The background was how the Swedish Sports Authority should deal with the much-discussed MyGame case, which concerns the installation of cameras in sports halls around Norway and the soundness of this. And that is debatable at best. What was then discussed ended in a notification case, which has therefore lasted for more than three months. ONLY WITNESS: The conversation that ended in whistleblowing took place over the president’s phone. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Lawyers actually cost money No one doubts the importance of handling notification cases with the seriousness and thoroughness such cases require at all times. Nor can anyone accuse the Norwegian Sports Confederation of not having put enough resources into the inflamed whistle-blowing case, which has now reached its formal conclusion. Three months, four lawyers and a long report pages are some of the elements in this case, which started in December and ended with a sports board meeting at Gardermoen on the last Friday before Easter. This has cost, yes, a lot. Lawyers make it “more complicated, and things cost money”, as Jan Fougner, lawyer, so aptly put it. RADAR PAIR: Jan Fougner and Berit Kjøll. Photo: Hanne Skjellum / news For a sports association that already has major financial challenges. But this is precisely the type of expenditure that will always be able to be defended. If it is a case of such a nature that it should be the subject of such a broad investigation. And not least if everything has been done to reach a solution earlier in the process. Whether that is the case here, only those implicated still know. But lawyer Fougner stressed several times that no provisions of the Working Environment Act had been breached. Then he also repeats that this matter could have been resolved much earlier. Over a cup of coffee. THE POWER OF CAFFEINE: Has it perhaps been underestimated in this case? Photo: Joerg Beuge 120 pages in 90 minutes What is also obvious is that there has been great dissatisfaction within the sports board with the treatment the case has received from sports president Kjøll and the rest of the so-called presidency. Including that Kjøll himself did not declare himself incompetent at a much earlier time. When the aforementioned report was today finally and for the first time presented to the sports board, which was to decide on the matter, the members had an hour and a half to familiarize themselves with the 120 pages that the aforementioned report and annexes made up. LAWYER OR SPORTS PRESIDENT?: Jan Fougner. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB There has generally been great dissatisfaction internally in the Sports Board for a long time. An obvious result of this is that one of the board’s members, Zaineb Al-Samarai, is standing as Kjøll’s opponent in the sports presidential election at the sports council in June. During today’s press session, however, lawyer Jan Fougner appeared as a more obvious candidate to manage Norwegian sports than an increasingly resigned Berit Kjøll. IDRETTENS HUS: This is where the Norwegian Sports Confederation is based. Photo: Nicolai Eid Trondal / news The necessary unnecessary money Internally in sport, the case has created a lot of noise in recent months. And there is nothing to suggest that it will give up with today’s apparent agreement. No one feels that the important notification institute in sport has been strengthened through this case, between two strong and on paper equal parties. No one feels any form of increased confidence that the processes between the elected sports board and the administration have been or will be improved. This is the last thing Berit Kjøll needed right now. And the last thing sport needed in times of pure crisis is precisely “unnecessary money spent”, as Fougner called it. Now the same presidency, i.e. part of the Sports Board, will focus on what they call repair and learning. The way they will do it is, as Kjøll tells news at the back of today’s meetings: “We are now going to connect with us external expertise on how we can go even deeper into ensuring a good clarification of roles, good definitions of responsibilities towards how we should work even better towards a skilled administration and a skilled board.” Or in slightly more comprehensible Norwegian: By spending even more money. In the end, Norwegian sport ends up with a cup of coffee that could not have been more expensive – if it had arrived in banana boxes from Ecuador.
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The most expensive coffee cup of all time – news Sport – Sports news, results and broadcast schedule
