opinions
Arne O. Holm says:
Security Policy Is No Longer the Sole Focus. Football and Bodø/Glimt Has Entered the Field.
Comment: As a newspaper that covers the High North and the Arctic, we receive daily inquiries from journalist colleagues across the world who seek knowledge about our part of the world. Usually, it concerns defense and security policy, but recently, the inquiries have changed.
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This is a comment written by a member of the editorial staff. All views expressed are the writer's own.
At least to some extent.
The world is looking more and more toward the North. The interest has nearly exploded since Russia's attack on Ukraine. The neighborship with Russia, the new NATO, which also includes Sweden and Finland, and not least, questions about Svalbard and Greenland.
Foreign journalists
We answer as best we can. The geopolitical understanding varies. Some of the inquiries reveal an ignorance that is hard to relate to. Yet, our job is to spread knowledge about what takes place in the North, including beyond the newspaper columns.
However, the past weeks have put something entirely else on the foreign journalists' radar.
The Arctic is not just a security policy hotspot.
Glimt's journey out into Europe is built on a long northern tradition
The Arctic is also a football team that has taken the world by storm, literally.
The winning streak of the football club Bodø/Glimt in Europe is not only for the enjoyment of us northerners. It has gained attention all over the world and creates interest and curiousity.
Bodø/Glimt - Inter Milan 5-2, Bodø/Glimt - Manchester City 3-1, Bodø/Glimt - Atletico Madrid 2-1.
The questions do not revolve around the technical aspects of soccer.
They focus on what it is about the North that makes it possible to create this kind of masterpiece within sports.
Like the other evening, when I featured in a live broadcast from New Zealand. Scott and Sammy, the two hosts of the radio channel "Sport Nation" had already fallen in love with the Arctic football phenomenon.
The whole city in the stands
There was a lot of laughing in the radio studio on the "other side" of the globe, a time difference of 12 hours.
Not least, when they realized that if you crammed the entire population of Bodø, the hometown of Bodø/Glimt, into San Siro, the gigantic home stadium of Inter Milan, which the team had dominated a few hours ealier, there would still be almost 30,000 available seats in the stands.
I readily admit that it is a true joy to convey something other than geo- and security policy from the North. To share the joy of shivering through a winter in the stands in Bodø, an arena that can only house 8,000 spectators.
Being allowed to paint a verbal picture of the North that explains why we live here and why we succeed in many areas. Also on the football field.
Like the rest of the High North, most of what we produce is intended for export. Bodø/Glimt's journey out into Europe and advancement in the Champions League is therefore based on a long, northern tradition.
That a soccer club north of the Arctic Circle has achieved this shows just one thing: Most things are possible in the North.
