After being left out of the Norway squad in November, Sheffield United star Sander Berge has returned to the national team squad for the upcoming European qualifiers against Spain and Georgia.
Ahead of their preparation for the clash against La Roja on Saturday, a spying scandal has emerged.
According to TV2, Spanish TV channel, Movistar Plus, aired several segments of Norway’s closed training session on Tuesday. The website has also included a screenshot of the alleged video in their report.
This has not pleased several Norway players, including the Sheffield United midfielder, who has been annoyed with the latest spying scandal from the Spanish media.
“You’re not surprised anymore. It may soon happen that they take a look, it’s probably not the first time this has happened to us,” he told TV2.
“Of course, that’s not acceptable. It’s not something you should have when you’re trying to have it closed and preparing for an important game for both teams. But we live with it and do our thing to keep it hidden.”
The Sheffield United man was joined by Union Berlin’s Morten Thorsby in being critical of this incident. The latter has even sent a message for the Norwegian football association on how to avoid these incidents.
“That’s normal: I’ve been to Italy and then we had guards in the hills around who looked after us, so maybe we have to send someone from the NFF up. No, we haven’t talked about it. But I only saw the picture today. So maybe we have to send someone up during the day and make sure that there are no Spaniards standing and filming us,” Thorsby explained.
Norway manager Ståle Solbakken didn’t share the same views as the Blades midfielder and Thorsby on the spying incident.
“We have to live with that. At least it shows that they have some respect for us,” he said.
Following this scandal, Berge and his compatriots will be even more motivated to prove a point when they face Spain later this weekend.
