OSLO: Norway’s football community on Sunday voted against boycotting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar despite pressure from its grassroots over alleged human rights abuses of migrant workers in the Gulf state.
At an extraordinary congress called by the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF), 368 delegates voted for a motion rejecting a boycott while 121 were in favour.
In the run-up to the vote, Ole Kristian Sandvik, spokesman of the Norwegian Supporters Alliance (NSA), said the matches in the Gulf state in 2022 will “unfortunately be like playing on a cemetery,” using a term commonly employed by opponents of Norway’s participation.
Norway, which has not qualified for a major international competition since Euro 2000, is currently fourth in its World Cup qualifying group.
So although qualification seems an uphill task, the result of the vote could have had an impact on whether Norway and its star Erling Braut Haaland — one of the hottest properties in world football — continued to play qualifying matches.
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