Sports board representative Marco Elsafadi has called on sports president Berit Kjøll to resign immediately. Rower Kjetil Borch has asked the head of the Athlete Committee, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, to do the same. But even if the two women had listened to the two men, which they are unlikely to do, in reality it would have changed little. Because the problems are much deeper than the people at the top of the big and small sports pyramids. The IOC on the inside One of the most important is the unclear presence of the all-powerful International Olympic Committee, the IOC. Formally, it is not so unclear. It is the informal extent of concentration of power in IOC hands and heads that is more difficult to assess. The Norwegian member of the IOC board, Kristin Kloster Aasen, has a permanent seat on the Sports Board. The same has been said of the head of the Athlete Committee, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, also an IOC member. Permanent place in Norwegian sports’ most important elected collegium – and through that unlimited access to people and information. Only by virtue of being a member of an international organisation. And even when there is nothing Olympic on the agenda. NIF AND IOC: Sports president Berit Kjøll (left) and Kristin Kloster Aasen (right) during the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB This was not the case under Norway’s previous IOC representative, Gerhard Heiberg, who to a much greater extent limited this to what is relevant. But that’s how it is now. And it is definitely not without fundamental concerns. In 2021, the Olympic motto was changed. After 127 years of “Faster, higher, stronger” – or “Citius, altius, fortius”, as it is called in the original Latin version, the IOC’s slogan received an addition in the form of the word “together”. As true Olympians, we must seek to challenge the human limits together. Kloster Aasen has obviously forgotten to pass this on to the Sports Board when she appears at the meetings there. As she and Jacobsen do on a regular basis. Because this has, consciously or not, most of all contributed to increasing the turbulence that ravages Sports Norway. A deeply divided board It is not so easy to spot in the first place. Simply because our general knowledge of the inner life of sport’s highest elected body is quite limited. However, that has changed drastically in recent months. In particular, the much-discussed – and actually closed – whistle-blowing case against a sports board member, who has now turned out to be Marco Elsafadi, has revealed an internal dissatisfaction and division that is really quite startling. The elected leader, sports president Berit Kjøll, has not been able to give any signals that she possesses the tools or the abilities to gather her board in time before it is ready for the Sports Council in June. Including the election of the president. Such events often have an inspiring effect on the candidates. In Kjøll’s case, she seems more and more paralyzed. Lies and cursed lies After having spent well over one million sports kroner on lawyers and external PR advisers through the notification case, which strangely enough has been allowed to last more than three months, Kjøll could use the closure of the case just before Easter to reset and not at least try to radiate a new give going forward. Instead, she has ended up doing the exact opposite, quite inexplicably. If you have spent hundreds of thousands of the sports community’s dwindling pool of money on communication advice, you should speak up. If you have been elected on a promise of brutal and honest openness, then you should show it off. If you have been elected as an experienced leader rather than someone who has spent his life on sports politics, then you should demonstrate trust-inspiring and not least inclusive leadership. At the moment, Berit Kjøll does neither. Cool fumbles. And has outwardly lost much of the undoubted power and radiance she had earlier in her presidency. And when, this Thursday, complaints are to be made to the administratively employed whistleblower during the Sports Board’s Open Time, it is vice-president Vibecke Sørensen who must take the burden, even if Kjøll himself is present. In addition, she lies regularly. And it is therefore not very beautiful. The American writer Mark Twain popularized the phrase “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”. The NIF version is a paraphrase of this, where statistics have been replaced with “bad joke”, which was the explanation Kjøll gave when news revealed that she had bluffed about the legal fees in the aforementioned whistleblower case. Stronger together And in the background lurks the IOC. And the uncertainty about how much influence they have on decisive decisions in Norwegian sport. It is not Kristin Kloster Aasen who has created the system as it is today. But it is also not surprising if she is the one who understands it best – and knows how to maneuver it. In such a process, the presence of Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen as the athletes’ regular representative is necessarily useful. Again “Faster, higher, stronger – together”, that is. Where the term “together” probably from the IOC’s side primarily means together with us. The IOC has a patent on this motto. As they have on their members’ loyalty. The Sports Board confirmed again its position of wanting the continued ban of Russia and Belarus this week. With that, they distance themselves from IOC President Thomas Bach’s increasingly clear intentions. One of the members present did not support the official Norwegian line. It is probably possible to guess who. And as we joke But it also gives grounds for suspicions that the influence goes further than this. And this is not constructive for a sports board. Far from it, actually. The feeling of increasingly clear factions within the board has been expressed from several quarters over a long period of time. Then one can also wonder why the Sports Board did not follow up on the previous Sports Council’s instruction to investigate the current model with a merged Norwegian Olympic Committee and Norwegian Sports Confederation. Before it was called for by the media. And about why an already discussed Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen chose re-election as leader of the performers’ committee. And whether there can in fact be underlying considerations that have prolonged the latest notification case – and with that also the burden on both the parties and NIF’s strained finances. This way we can continue for quite a long time. As an annoying illustration that far too much time and resources are being spent on the wrong things at the top of Norwegian sports at the moment. Where all speculation can be excused anyway with the fact that it was just a bad joke
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