Former Start director files complaint against NFF, saying it has failed completely
Translated from Norwegian and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.
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- Even Øgrey Brandsdal has formally asked the Norwegian Football Federation’s prosecuting committee to examine alleged breaches involving children’s travel to football tournaments.
- He says about 900 teams breached the rules at the Sør Cup, Lindesnes Cup and Sebra Cup since 2017, while a VG review found 579 potential breaches from 2021 to 2026.
- Brandsdal accuses NFF Agder and the national federation of ignoring repeated warnings after rejecting a similar invitation request from his own club.
Even Øgrey Brandsdal says he has uncovered about 900 alleged breaches of Norwegian rules on how far children may travel to football tournaments. He has now filed a formal request for prosecution against the Norwegian Football Federation and five clubs.
It is a systematic breach of the very foundation of Norwegian sport.
The request is being handled by NFF’s independent prosecuting committee. Brandsdal, a former Start director and former Våg FK chair, filed it as an individual member of Våg FK. His complaint names the clubs organizing Sebra Cup, Sør Cup and Lindesnes Cup, as well as NFF centrally, NFF Agder and NFF Rogaland.
Norwegian children’s sports rules limit tournament travel. For children aged six to eight, competitions should take place in their home municipality, a neighboring municipality or within one hour’s travel each way. The same basic rule applies to nine- and 10-year-olds, with a limit of two hours each way.
At the same time, I discovered that tournaments such as Sør Cup, Sebra Cup and Lindesnes Cup were filled with children’s football teams as young as six from Rogaland, Vestland and eastern Norway.
VG’s own review of registration lists for the three tournaments from 2021 through 2026 identified 579 potential breaches, using travel times calculated with Google Maps. Brandsdal’s figure covers the tournaments since 2017 and counts each registered team as a separate breach. He says teams as young as eight traveled for more than four hours to attend the Sebra Cup in Kristiansand.
The serious issue is that NFF Agder has known about this for 18 months. Since then, six tournaments have been held. I have asked for an explanation, but I get no answer.
The dispute began after NFF Agder rejected Våg FK’s request to invite teams from Rogaland and Telemark to the free High Five Cup in 2025. Brandsdal says he then noticed that the other tournaments included children’s teams from Rogaland, Vestland and eastern Norway. Emails show that he contacted NFF Agder several times in January and February 2025, seeking a written explanation. He says the federation ignored his warnings and later rejected his approach to the national organization as well.
They deliberately chose to ignore my repeated warnings and completely failed in their role as supervisory body.
About this summary
Originally published by Aftenposten in Norwegian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.
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