Sports council representative Marco Elsafadi has asked sports president Berit Kjøll to resign immediately.

Rower Kjetil Borch has asked the head of the Athletes Committee, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, to do the same.

But even if the two women had listened to the two men, which they likely wouldn’t, in reality it wouldn’t have changed much.

Because the problem goes much deeper than that person at the top of the big and small sports pyramid.

IOC inside

One of the most important is the unclear presence of the all-powerful International Olympic Committee, the IOC.

Formally It’s not that clear. It is the degree of informal concentration of power in the hands and heads of the IOC that is more difficult to assess.

IOC board member from Norway, Kristin Kloster Aasen, has a permanent seat on the Sports Council. The same thing was conveyed by the Chair of the Athletes Committee, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, also a member of the IOC.

Permanent place in selected collegiums of the most important Norwegian sport – and through unrestricted access to people and information.

Just for being a member of an international organization.

And even when there is no Olympics on the agenda.

This was not the case under the previous IOC Norway representative, Gerhard Heiberg, who limited this much more to what was relevant.

But that’s how things are now. And it’s certainly not without underlying concerns.

In 2021, the Olympic motto was changed. After 127 years of “Faster, higher, stronger” – or “Citius, altius, fortius”, as it was called in its original Latin version, the IOC’s slogan gets the addition of the word “together”.

As true Olympians, we must strive to challenge human limits together.

Kloster Aasen clearly forgot to mention this to the Sports Council when he showed up to the meeting there.

As he and Jacobsen did regularly.

Because this, whether you realize it or not, has largely contributed to the increased turbulence that is damaging to Norwegian Sport.

Very divided government

It’s not easy to recognize him in the first place. Just because our general knowledge about the inner life of the highest choice sports body is very limited. However, that has changed drastically in the last few months.

In particular, the much-discussed – and actually concluded – whistleblowing case against a member of the sports council, which now turns out to be Marco Elsafadi, has revealed shocking discontent and internal divisions.

The leader-elect, sports president Berit Kjøll, has failed to provide any signal that she has the tools or ability to convene her board in time before it is ready for the Sports Council in June.

Including the presidential election.

Such events often have an inspiring effect on candidates. In Kjøll’s case, he seems increasingly paralyzed.

Damned lies and lies

After spending more than a million sporting kroner on lawyers and external PR advisers through the notice case, which was oddly allowed to last more than three months, Kjøll could use the pre-Easter closing of the case to reset and at least try to flash a new move.

Instead, he ended up doing the opposite, inexplicably.

If you’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the sports community’s dwindling budget on communications advice, you need to speak up.

If you got elected on a brutal and honest promise of openness, then you have to show it off.

Has someone been selected as an experienced Manager more than someone who has spent his life on sports politics, then someone must demonstrate leadership that is confident and at least inclusive.

Currently, Berit Kjøll does neither.

Cool groping. Dan has outwardly lost much of the power and undoubted radiance that he had before in his presidency.

And when, this Thursday, the complaint will be filed against administratively employed complainants during the Sports Council Open Time, vice president Vibecke Sørensen will have to bear the brunt, even if Kjøll himself is present.

In addition, he often lies. And because it’s not very beautiful.

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, in that statistics have been replaced with “bad jokes”, which is the explanation Kjøll gave when NRK revealed he had been bluffing about legal costs in the aforementioned whistleblower case.

Stronger together

And the IOC is hiding in the background. And uncertainty about how much influence they will have on fateful decisions in Norwegian sport.

It wasn’t Kristin Kloster Aasen who created the system it is today. But it’s also no surprise that he’s the one who understands it best – and knows how to set it up. In such a process, the presence of Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen as the athlete’s regular representative is of course very useful.

Again “Faster, higher, stronger – together”, ie.

Where the term “together” may from the IOC side primarily mean together We.

The IOC owns a patent for this motto. As they have on the loyalty of their members.

Sports Council reaffirmed its position about wanting to continue isolating Russia and Belarus this week. In doing so, they distanced themselves from IOC President Thomas Bach’s increasingly clear intentions.

One of the members present did not support the official Norwegian line. Maybe you can guess who.

And when we joke

But it also raises suspicions that his influence goes further than this. And this is not constructive for the sports council. Far from it, actually. The increasingly clear factional feelings within the council have been expressed from several quarters over a long period of time.

Then one can also wonder why the Sports Council did not follow up on the Sports Council’s previous instructions to investigate the current model with the joint Norwegian Olympic Committee and the Norwegian Sports Confederation. Before it was called by the media.

And about why the already discussed Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen chose re-election as chairman of the performance committee.

And whether there can indeed be underlying considerations that extend the latest case notice – and with it also become a burden on both parties and the gasping NIF finances.

This way we can continue for quite a long time. As an annoying illustration that too much time and resources are being spent on the wrong things at the top of Norwegian sport today.

Where all the speculation could be forgiven by the fact that it was just a bad joke