ABSTRACT
Football is the largest grassroots sport in Norway and traditionally has adhered to a “sport for all” ideal. To support this, the Children's Sports Regulations have served to protect this ideal for children up to age 12. To respond to declining results in elite football, the Norwegian Football Association and the elite clubs’ interest organisation have sought to professionalise talent development in Norway. This chapter discusses two specific initiatives, the academy classification and “the national team's school”, to improve elite football that might challenge the fundamental sport-for-all values and the Norwegian sports model. It will examine these two initiatives through the lens of Habermas’ colonisation thesis and analyse the effect on the key dimensions of elite–grassroots, centralisation–regionalisation, commercialisation–democratisation. The chapter analyses how strategic actions from the different actors in football challenges the balance between the key dimensions, in the implementation of the two initiatives. Finally, the national football congress is shown to be an arena, where communicative action could guide a path forward for Norwegian football. Here moral deliberation could and should weigh heavier than instrumental reason when making decisions for the future generation of young footballers.
