Football in Norway

Football is the most popular sport in Norway. The Football Association of Norway was founded in 1902 and the first international match was played in 1908. There are 1,822 registered football clubs and about 25,000 teams. There are 393,801 (104,597 of them are girls/women) registered football players. [http://www.fotball.no/t2.aspx?p=53275&cat=51832] That means that 8.5 % of the population play organized football.

History

In 1885 Odd the first ever Norwegian club was founded in Skien. The footballing interest was unfortunately very low, and was put on ice after a few months. However, the football club,Odd Grenland, Started up with football again in 1894, and are now Norways oldest football club. The Football Association of Norway (the NFF), was founded in 1902, and quickly established a cup competition. After the NFF joined FIFA in 1908, Norway had its first ever international match, away against Sweden in Gothenburg, despite Norway taking the lead after a mere 45 seconds, Sweden went on to win 11-3. In 1911 Norway hosted its first international in Oslo, again against Sweden, this time Norway lost 4-0. In 1912 the Norwegian national football team attended the Olympic Games, and were knocked out after losing to Denmark and Austria 7-0 and 1-0 respectively. The NFF hosted the FIFA congress in Oslo in 1914, where a national league was established with six teams competed for the title Drafn, Frigg, Kvik/Halden, Larvik Turn, Mercantile and Odd, who went on to be the first league winners. The Norwegian national men’s team won their only medal at an international championship in 1936 at the Germany Olympic Games. In the relatively successful tournament Norway beat Turkey and hosts Germany 4-0 and 2-0 respectively, losing to Italy in the semi-final, then beating Poland 3-2 in the third-place play-off to take the bronze medal. The team is known in Norway as "Bronselaget" meaning the Bronze team.

League system

The current national league system administered by the football association is organised as 1-1-4-24, where Tippeligaen is the highest Norwegian level and Adeccoligaen the second highest, followed by four third level (Division 2) and 24 fourth level (Division 3).

A total of 2.5 teams promote from Adeccoligaen to Tippeligaen. The third last team in Tippeligaen play play-off matches against the third best team in Adeccoligaen. Four teams, the winner of each group, promote from Division 2 to Adeccoligaen. Twelve teams (12 of the 24 group winners) promote from Division 3 to Division 2. The group winners play play-off matches.

The top league will be extended to 16 teams as from the end of season 2008, and there will be exeptions to this procedure for this season only.

Cup system

European Competitions

UEFA Champions League

The following teams have qualified for elimination rounds in the UEFA Champions League.

*Rosenborg BK (1996-97 - Quarter-finals)

National team

Women's national team

See also

Norwegian football league champions