Disconnected in Conflict with the FIS: Reactions to the Norwegian Protest Action

The head of the arrangement, Terje Lund, of the ski federation, said that the action evoked NRK Just before VG this afternoon, the Norwegian, Swedish and German teams intervened after a long-standing disagreement with the International Ski Federation since spring. He believes that the FIS has no right to nominate sponsors for hotmailers to which athletes are required to participate.

– Heating figures are not defined in the regulation as commercial law, unlike the FIS. And then we hear that they can not even expose their sponsors, "Lund told VG.

You could see the difference between Norwegian athletes and a number of foreign artists in the stadium today. The Coop logo was large and visible on the warming jerseys of foreign teams, while it was made aware by Norwegians, Swedes and Germans.

Lund says it would be the same reaction, no matter the sponsor. In cross-country skiing, it is the former sponsor of Petter Northug, Coop, which sponsors the Cross-Country World Cup. Together, the sponsor Viessmann and Lund highlight the same problem.

"It's a case of international principle that has nothing to do with sponsors, the principle is that organizers and associations have to get a profile of their sponsors and that's the bottom line now. our organizers organize the World Cup in a sustainable way, we must also have exposure opportunities and when it is not anchored in the regulatory framework, as a right, the FIS has, we can not give it to them anyway, "Lund said, waiting for the FIS management to arrive in Lillehammer this weekend.

He said that they had tried to find a solution with the FIS before the opening of the World Cup in Ruka, but that it had not succeeded. And he adds that they have no other solution to Lillehammer than to cover the mark of the sponsor. He says their suggestion was to create neutral vests and then agree on the way forward in the spring.

"The FIS has said no for the moment," Lund said.

Respond to the ski federation

Coop, which now sponsors the Cross-Country Skiing World Cup, told VG, through the director of communications, Bjørn Takle Friis:

"We are in contact with the dialogue that the FIS has with Skiforbundet and do not really participate in it, but it is especially that they come now after so many years and that the World Cup is back in Norway", said Takle Friis, pointing out that they had already been in conflict with the Ski Federation points out when they did not become a new sponsor of the Ski Federation last spring.

This also applies, among other things, to the long-standing conflict between Northug's private initiative sponsored by Coop and the Ski Federation.

"We feel that about Coop and nothing else, it does not harmonize, they are not exposed by teasing them anymore, and it comes down to their own injustice," says Takle Friis.

– This is another example of extremely bad judgment on the part of the Confederation. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is an agreement between Norway and the Ski Federation. And it's the Coop logo that hurts here, says Friis.

Norgesgruppen has signed a sponsorship agreement with the Ski Federation and extended its sponsorship this spring, as Coop has also applied for sponsorship.

The communication officer of the Norwegian Ski Association, Espen Graff, rejects the FIS conflict due to lack of judgment and pressure from the sponsors. He refers to the Lund event manager, but responds:

– The starting point for this is a disagreement on certain market principles and decisions in the FIS. There is nothing to do in Norway. This is why countries such as Sweden, Switzerland and Germany have the same parameters as Norway, says Graff.