Twelve years after Ronar Berg begged for money for Bodo/Glimt, the club faces a settlement that could result in ridiculous compensation: loser He gets 50 million Norwegian kroner.
– He was quite sick, says Ronar Berg, laughing at the time when, “under pressure” his brother Organ, who sat on the Glimt board, created a closed account where individuals and companies could contribute money.
The year was 2010 and the idea was that if Bodø/Glimt went bankrupt, people should get their money back.
Among the contributions were 200 kg of diabetes from a hunter in Lofoten.
– Then an announcement was made and all the slams started. People sold lottery tickets and timber and deposited money into accounts. In town, people threw 200 notes at me and yelled “Give this to Glimt,” laughs Ranar Berg, who got a delicious “flashback” from this screenshot:
– Begging at a high level, Berg writes in an SMS – with a smile – about his behavior.
Now the money is flowing into the Glimt system. And on the evening of next Tuesday and Wednesday, Croatia will face Dinamo Zagreb in the play-off match. The winner goes to the Champions League, and the loser goes to the European League.
The playoffs feature a somewhat special prize money distribution. The loser receives five million euros (about 50 million Norwegian kroner) from UEFA. The winner gets nothing in the playoff itself (but later gets huge sums in the Champions League).
– I think it was really worth it, says Berg of the krone roll he started, at a time when there is talk of tens of millions today.
The “consolation prize” of around 50 million NOK is a one-time payment that comes in addition to a fairly good amount in the European League.
So Glimt is already guaranteed European income in the range of 100 million.
– At that time it was critical, and you had to build over many years. There were many who contributed: businesses, the public sector, supporters and players who lost their salaries. We had a feeling it could go wrong, but it didn’t, Berg describes.
He is part of the Berg football family in Bodo, and is one of the club’s greatest players of all time. He is currently working as a Marketing and Sales Officer at the club.
We are now really on our way to one of the biggest contributors of that period, LNS (Leonhard Nilsen & Sønner). Neither Organ nor I will be at Aspmyra on Tuesday, we will be in football school with IL Andøygutten and LNS in Risøyhamn. We’re looking forward to sitting here with the car full of soccer balls, he says.
– It’s an incredibly big event. The peeps have been pretty amazing lately. Dinamo Zagreb is a good team for sure, and so is Glimt to a large extent.
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