heja rosenborg!

[ifk]

Rosenborg's success has seen rivals pay dearly
Emmet Malone: On Irish Soccer
Irish Times

05/08/03: Their record in Europe may reflect the astonishing progress that Rosenborg has made in a little over a decade but far from paving the way for the other Norwegian clubs to achieve success, the Trondheim outfit's achievements have come at a price for the rest of the country's Tippeligaen.

During Rosenborg's brief stay in Dublin last week the club's director of sport, Rune Bratseth, admitted that programmes of heavy investment by rival clubs aimed at enabling them to counter the growing dominance of his own side had left every other one of the top flight clubs in serious financial difficulty.

It is difficult to overstate the scale of Rosenborg's achievements since the start of the 90s but the background against which the club decided to expand was certainly favourable. It enthusiastically availed of a Norwegian FA programme under which full-time players were subsidised and also benefited from the association's policy of ensuring that the best young players stayed at home.

But long-time coach Nils Arne Eggen and the directors of the club made a huge contribution too with the former adopting a tactical approach that his players could clearly understand and then sticking with it rigidly - potential replacements including current boss Aage Hareide were only considered if they too favoured 4-3-3, while the board spent heavily on transforming the club's outdated facilities.

By the time Eggen left, Rosenborg had just won their 11th successive league title and though it took them three years to turn their domestic success into achievement on the European stage, he had, by the time he departed, also led them to the group stages of the Champions League for eight straight years.

Players were sold for significant fees, prize-money rolled in from UEFA and the club's domestic revenue soared as its attendances climbed dramatically. It also became a magnet for commercial revenue in a country where companies wishing to be associated with footballing success only had one realistic option.

The money seems to have been spent with remarkable foresight. Large sums were invested training facilities, academies and the brand new 22,000 seat stadium Lerkendal Stadium was completed three years ago.

The capacity seems modest until you consider that Trondheim has just 140,000 residents. The club's appeal, however, has long since transcended its locality. Having dominated the Norwegian game so completely for more than a decade, assembled much of the national team and massively enhanced the country's footballing reputation with a string of impressive Champions league performances, they are their nation's Manchester United.

At Dalymount Hareide started with 11 full internationals and left another three on the bench. Quite a few are overseas which doesn't leave a whole lot for the rest of the league's clubs to share out amongst themselves. In fact, there hasn't been a whole lot of anything left for the other clubs.

The club continues to look for ways to expand its empire, however. Hareide recently called for a "Nordic super league" which would involve clubs from other Scandinavian countries and, presumably, bring in a few more bob to boot.

For quite some time Irish club officials have identified Rosenborg as a model to be followed but for the league as a whole the story of their success might also serve as a cautionary tale.

On the face of it their lead should not be impossible for an Irish club to follow. Their average wage is just ?120,000 or so putting the cost of a 22-man squad at roughly ?2.5 million which should be easily recoverable for an Irish club that could emulate its achievements in European competition.

What does appear insurmountable at the moment is the scale of the initial investment required as well as the need to stop our best young players going to English clubs. And what will surely cause some niggling concern to the majority of eircom league clubs that have no prospect whatsoever of emulating the Norwegians in the years ahead is that that there success shows us is that there is only room for one Rosenborg just as there is room for only one Maribora and Skonta Riga.

With Bohemians having conceded an away goal to Rosenborg it would take quite an upset in Trondheim for them to become even the first Irish club to reach the third qualifying round of the Champions League. Stephen Kenny's side have been a little unlucky with the draw, however, and some Irish side should achieve that much within the next few seasons. It is when a club goes one stage beyond that we will discover just how dramatically the face of our game might be changed by such a breakthrough.