Ada Hegerberg: Why planet’s greatest player is not playing in the Women’s World Cup

It takes a rare athlete to be the centre of attention without being present, but Ada Hegerberg is a very special footballer. The Lyon striker, who came to wider prominence when asked if she “twerked” as she became the first winner of the female Ballon d’Or last December, will be much discussed when Norway play France at Nice’s Riviera Stadium on Wednesday night. It should be one of the highlights of her 23 years, representing her nation at a World Cup in the country in which she lives, against that country and many of her club team-mates.

But Hegerberg, scorer of 38 goals in 66 internationals, will not be playing. She is in dispute with the Norwegian Football Federation and has boycotted the national side since they crashed out of Euro 2017, pointless and goalless. It is the Norwegian version of Roy Keane’s exile from the Irish side and just as divisive. It is increasingly clear that most of her erstwhile international colleagues have had enough of hearing about it and want the focus to be on the 23 players who are playing in the World Cup, not the one who is there as a TV pundit. As far as they are concerned, they are doing perfectly well without her and meet France with a 3-0 win over Nigeria already in the bag.

That is understandable, but as with Keane in 2002, it is not as simple as that. An interview with Hegerberg, conducted in February but published this week as part of a series, re-ignited a debate that had barely cooled. Martin Odegaard, the Norwegian tyro whose career has stuttered since signing for Real Madrid at 17, responded with an Instagram post that included: “Couldn’t you find anything better to do just before the World Cup begins? Your team-mates deserve better.”

A panel for US broadcasters Fox Sports that included American and German Women’s World Cup winners, then weighed in. They criticised Hegerberg for acting alone, suggesting she needed to clarify her complaints, and claiming the Norwegian players were delighted with Odegaard’s intervention.

Against the men in suits

Hegerberg has yet to reply, but previously made clear she has multiple issues with the NFF which pre-date Euro 2017. She has also indicated she is using her profile to make a stand against “the men in suits” on behalf of female players everywhere.

“Having all this success gives you a voice,” she said. She also revealed in the newly-published interview, conducted jointly by Norwegian outlets Josimar and Morgenbladet, that she needed to quit the team for her own mental health.

“Many national team camps have been tough,” she said. “I’ve been shattered mentally, it’s been totally depressing. After national team camps, I had nightmares. Such things are not supposed to happen. As soon as that thought entered my head, ‘You have to quit the national team’… everything just washed off. I slept well again.”

Series of failings

In criticisms that echo Keane’s of the Irish hierarchy, Hegerberg listed a series of failings. For a 10-day training camp the players were given ill-fitting kit and one representative T-shirt. While the men’s team were given a truck-load of football boots from which to take their pick, the women were given one pair each. Their boots for Euro 2017 arrived just days before the finals, and some in the wrong sizes.

It is not just about the national team (whose equal pay initiative was driven by the men’s team, not the NFF). The women’s league’s sponsor was initially rebuffed by the NFF, which stated that women’s football “wasn’t commercially interesting”, and Hegerberg feels efforts at grassroots are also insufficient. A report in October concluded the NFF was less positive about women’s football than the general public.

The situation is at odds with Scandinavia’s egalitarian ethos and Hegerberg knows how different it can be. Lyon treat men and women equally in everything except salaries (and they are the world’s best-paid women’s team). Seven Lyon players will represent France tonight, but the star player, the one who scored a hat-trick in their fourth successive Champions League success last month, will be absent.

“It would be easy for me to perform, do my thing, and stay quiet,” she said last month. But no one gets to be best in the world by taking the easy option.