The General Football Thread

[LAM09 6,744]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

PSG and Citeh just came in their pants

when you have trillions backing you, a 'luxury tax' is chump change

I fully expect the Saudis to REALLY try and buy teams now, plus perhaps Bezos or Musk or Bernard Arnault (who just passed Bezos as the world's richest man)

The latter did want to buy Milan, so it's only a matter of time.

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[Warning_Hazard 156]

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has revealed the Spanish club is 1.35bn euros (£1.15bn) in debt, describing the situation as "very worrying".

The club's wage bill currently accounts for 103% of total income.

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/58235195

 

CRAZY! FFP? LULLL

[MoroccanBlue 5,297]

Will they go bust?

[Vesper 28,801]

How GOOD was Juan Roman Riquelme? ● Tactical Analysis

 

[Vesper 28,801]

Just how GOOD was Michel Platini Actually?

 

[Vesper 28,801]

https://football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2021/wp344/en/

 

[Blues Forever 1,232]

Summary:

the Flint consulting agency have first-class contacts with parliamentarians and authorities. Their specialty is discreetly »paving the way« for difficult projects.

This summer, the company with offices in Brussels and London applied for a particularly delicate contract: They are supposed to unhinge international professional football. The football clubs Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Juventus Turin want to found a European Super League. Yes still.

Pérez and his people really want to push through the Super League. And the Flint agency wants to help them with that. They have designed a strategy how the league could still be successful against all odds.

Spiegel had access to the agency's first draft. The paper has ten pages and is entitled "Preparing the way for the Super League: the strategy for reconstruction, reset - and victory".

Flint promises to launch a campaign that will be "bulletproof" against attacks of all Super League opponents

The legal experts from Flint see chances of a victory in front of the European Court of Justice, which would then legitimize the Super League by the highest court. But just winning in court, without conquering the "hearts and minds" of fans and opinion leaders, will not be enough, according to Flint

The company plans to reverse the negative image of the Super League. With »discreet events« and »briefings for selected politicians, EU bureaucrats and journalists«. The aim is to take away the worries of decision-makers.

Flint lists important persons who should be influenced: the people of Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, EU parliamentarians with a connection to football like Tomasz Frankowski, media people like EU correspondents of the Financial Times and the FAZ

Flint experts point out in their paper that it makes no sense to try again with a league that opposes this principle of European football (pro/rel, open to all). Fans and politics would run into storm again.

the flagship product should be the Super League, there could also be a Super League 2 as a compromise. Promotion and relegation should be possible between these leagues.

the agency confirmed to SPIEGEL that it had received the Super League mandate from the clubs

[Blues Forever 1,232]

Summary :

There are two scenarios that the clubs are considering. - The first would see three clubs relegated from SuperLeague1 to SuperLeague2, with two teams promoted from SuperLeague 2 and one wild card.

The second option is something more similar to the current Champions League, but only for the Super League2, to which clubs would qualify thanks to their results in the national leagues. So, the Super League2 would change every year with 17 new clubs and three clubs relegated from the SuperLeague 1.

[Vesper 28,801]

Official. Mario Mandzukic has retired from football.

 

 

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[DH1988 1,273]

50 minutes ago, Blues Forever said:

 

Of course, anything that will get the FA more money.

[nyikolajevics 2,576]

 

[Fulham Broadway 16,841]

An urgent appeal to Mainstream Media - Please stop the Ronaldo Wank Fest ASAP

[Vesper 28,801]

1 hour ago, Fulham Broadway said:

An urgent appeal to Mainstream Media - Please stop the Ronaldo Wank Fest ASAP

[Vesper 28,801]

‘The Viking clap is ruined forever’ – Icelandic football’s sex abuse scandal

https://theathletic.com/2902465/2021/10/27/the-viking-clap-is-ruined-forever-icelandic-footballs-sex-abuse-scandal/

They were the country that won the hearts and minds of football fans everywhere. The smallest nation to ever qualify for a World Cup finals and the team that humbled England at Euro 2016. A part-time dentist was in the dugout and a Viking thunderclap tumbled down from the stands. Remember Iceland?

On a damp Friday evening in Reykjavik, at the end of a week here, that footballing fairytale feels like a long time ago. Iceland are playing Armenia in a World Cup qualifier at their national stadium and there are empty seats everywhere you look. The attendance is later confirmed as 1,697 — Iceland’s lowest crowd for a competitive fixture since 1997. 

Iceland have lost 11 of their previous 16 competitive matches and have no chance of qualifying for next year’s World Cup finals, but that is not the story here. The sobering backdrop to Armenia’s visit is an off-the-field scandal that has brought Icelandic football to its knees and tarnished the legacy of their golden generation, after it emerged that a series of allegations involving sexual and physical violence, including an accusation of rape, have been made against some of the national team players. It is for this reason that The Athletic has spent the week in Iceland talking to those involved in what is a horrible, deeply troubling story.

Plunged into a state of crisis at the end of August, the Icelandic Football Association (KSI) imploded. Within the space of 24 hours, the KSI president Gudni Bergsson resigned and 15 board members followed him amid acrimony, tears and claims of a cover-up.

In a country the size of Iceland, where the population is less than 400,000 and the football team’s success has been such a huge source of national pride, this story has consumed people. Are some of their heroes now villains? Was the fairytale not what it seemed? What should parents say to their children about all of this?

The touchpaper was lit when Thorhildur Gyda Arnarsdottir stepped forward to allege live on television that she had been assaulted and sexually harassed by an Iceland player in 2017 and, significantly, that her father had discussed the case with Bergsson shortly afterwards. In a television interview the previous day, Bergsson — the former Tottenham Hotspur and Bolton Wanderers defender — had claimed that KSI had not received any complaints of sexual violence against national team players.

Although Arnarsdottir did not name her alleged attacker, Kolbeinn Sigthorsson came forward five days later. Iceland’s all-time joint-leading goalscorer issued a statement that denied assaulting or harassing anyone but admitted he had agreed an out-of-court settlement with Arnarsdottir and her friend, who had also made a complaint.

Remarkably, the vast majority of KSI board members knew nothing about the story behind the incident involving Sigthorsson until Arnarsdottir’s television interview. It is understood that the case was never brought up in the boardroom and there was no knowledge until August of any communication with Arnarsdottir’s father. Damningly, it was not the only allegation that the board members were set to find out about.

In June this year, Bergsson and other senior KSI employees were informed that an Icelandic woman had accused two national team players – the captain Aron Gunnarsson and defender Eggert Jonsson – of raping her at a hotel in Copenhagen in 2010 while away on international duty. 

Well-placed sources have told The Athletic that KSI board members were only told about those 2010 claims in the wake of Arnarsdottir speaking out. Angry and upset, the KSI board issued a statement. 

“Dear victims. We, the board of the Icelandic Football Association, believe you and would like to sincerely apologise to you. We know that we as the parties responsible have let you down and we intend to do better,” read a board statement at the end of August. They also asked “victims or others who have information on serious violence within the association to come forward”, and promised to “look at the culture that exists within the football movement from the bottom up”. As for Bergsson, he was left with little option but to resign after his proposal to step aside temporarily was rejected by the board.

It is a horrific story on so many levels and is not going away any time soon. Last week police in Iceland confirmed to The Athletic that they had “good reasons” to launch a fresh investigation into the incident in Copenhagen 11 years ago.

“I can confirm that we have opened a case that first came up in 2010,” said Aevar Palmi Palmason, the head of the sexual offences department in Reykjavik. “We are reopening the case. We have received new information. The law allows for the reopening of cases for specific reasons. We need good reasons, and I can confirm we have good reasons. New data has come to light. We have interviewed multiple people.” 

Gunnarsson has issued a strong denial, which his lawyer referenced when contacted by The Athletic. “He (Aron) categorically denies ever having violated anyone, anywhere or anytime,” Einar Oddur said. “It is important to note that at the time Aron made his statement to Icelandic media there were only recent rumours circulating. At no point since 2010 has Aron been notified that he was being investigated and he has never been given the formal status of a suspect.

“We only learned recently that there was in fact an accusation back in 2010 and that the police saw no grounds to take it further, all of this happening without Aron’s knowledge. The police generally decides independently whether to investigate and in continuance send the matter to a prosecutor.” 

---

“I lay here without being able to sleep, I can’t stop thinking about everyone who has had to experience the same as me. Experience shame, anger, sadness, hopelessness, disbelief in one’s own feelings and experiences.”

It was shortly before 6am on May 9 when a 34-year-old Icelandic woman, who we will refer to as Dalia to respect her anonymity, posted that message on her Instagram account. The next part of her story comes with a warning: it is deeply disturbing to read.

“In 2010 I was raped by two Icelandic men abroad. I had been drinking alcohol but I suspect someone put something in my glass, could have been anyone. To make a long and miserable story short, I vomited over one of them in the taxi on the way to their hotel, then again on the bed at the hotel, but they did not let that stop them and took turns raping me as I laid in bed pant-less with puke in my hair, face and clothes.

“It’s almost 11 years ago but not a day goes by that this does not enter my mind. It robbed me of so much. Self-confidence, joy, opportunities, experiences. I was going to sue, I hired a lawyer, went to the police station and filed a report, but wherever I went I was told that this was a difficult case, happening in another country and them being both against me. I was repeatedly asked if I wanted to put this on myself. After many months of waiting, I decided to quit. I wasn’t strong enough, my mental health couldn’t handle it. These men were known, one of them nationally known today.

“I was repeatedly reminded that if I complained it would affect their careers, it would go to the papers and everyone would know about it. The questions I got when I told people that have stuck with me are: ‘Are you sure? You wanted this but then regretted it’. What I thought then, and still think sometimes today, is that no one believes me. 

“It’s disgustingly fucking hard to have to say #MeToo and I wish it on no one. I can tell, I just cannot name. I do not want to carry this alone in my heart, I do not want to think every time I go among people, ‘Do you think they know this, think they believe you?’ Because it is disgustingly burdensome and socially inhibiting. I’m always on alert. That day, something was taken from me that I will never get back, but I will continue to work on myself and finally return the shame.

“Fuck you!”

Senior figures at KSI, including Bergsson, were made aware a month after that message was posted that Dalia’s allegations were aimed at two players who had been representing Iceland at the time. Although rumours circulated on social media, it was not until Hanna Bjorg Vilhjalmsdottir, a teacher and the chairwoman of the Gender Equality Committee of the Icelandic Teachers’ Association, came across Dalia’s Instagram post that the story was reported.

“I was shocked,” Vilhjalmsdottir tells The Athletic. “I knew Dalia when she was a very young child. Her story talked to my heart. And of course I believe her, needless to say. I contacted Dalia and said I would like to do something with her story. I said I’m going to write an article because I want to force KSI to look this in the eye.”

The column that Vilhjalmsdottir wrote in the newspaper Visir on August 13 was scathing. As well as making gang rape allegations about national team players, Vilhjalmsdottir claimed that she knew of other stories involving Icelandic internationals who used physical or sexual violence against women and accused KSI of staying silent.

She did not give any details of those allegations, but KSI responded with a statement, not replying directly to Vilhjalmsdottir but denying the allegations that she had made. The story, however, fuelled debate in the mainstream media and, inevitably, ended with KSI president Bergsson being questioned on the subject. His claim in a TV interview that KSI had not received any formal complaints of sexual violence would ultimately cost him his job.

The following day, Arnarsdottir told the broadcaster RUV that an Iceland player had grabbed her between the legs and around the neck in a nightclub in Reykjavik in September 2017. She said that she reported the incident to police the next day, revealed that there had been dialogue between her father and Bergsson, and said that the case was eventually settled privately.

“I only stepped forward because the chairman, Gudni, lied,” Arnarsdottir tells The Athletic. “I didn’t step forward to talk about the violence that I’d been through. The KSI board was saying that Hanna Bjorg was lying and I knew that she wasn’t, so I wanted to give her the extra support that she needed and also to let the public know that there have been reports of abuse involving national team players. So I thought it was very important for me to step forward at the time that I did. If he had just been honest and said, ‘Yeah, we got reports and we handled it like that, blah, blah, blah…’ But he decided to lie.”

Arnarsdottir’s story, which she explains in more detail later in this article, put KSI, and Bergsson in particular, on the back foot. Speaking to the media again, Bergsson said that he had made a “mistake” in his interview. “I thought that this crime had been a violent crime and not of a sexual nature,” the KSI president said.

By now, however, the story was gathering pace and KSI was floundering. A four-and-a-half-hour board meeting took place via Zoom the day after Arnarsdottir’s interview. The following day, the board met in person at the national stadium, where Bergsson put forward his suggestion to step aside temporarily while the issues around the scandal were investigated. The board decided otherwise and Bergsson resigned immediately.

Although there were some claims of a cover-up, that accusation is strongly disputed by those who were on the inside at KSI during a tumultuous few days. “When the board resigned, I went there and met them on that weekend,” says Kolbrun Hrund Sigurgeirsdottir, who is a board member on the National Olympic and Sports Association of Iceland (ISI), as well as the project manager for equality and sexual education for Reykjavik city, and also part of two working groups that have been tasked with looking into the fallout from the KSI scandal.

“People were very angry and very sad, some people were crying. They were saying, ‘The media is killing us for something I’m hearing for the first time now.’ But no one believed them. They were like, ‘You knew about all of this and you never did anything.’ But that wasn’t true.

“They were like, ‘Why didn’t we get this on a board meeting? Why didn’t you tell us?’. Gudni Bergsson said, ‘This is confidential.’ They were like, ‘We are the board!’. So, yes, I think they were executed for something they didn’t do. Of course the atmosphere had to change (within KSI), I’m not saying that. But I think a lot of people were accused of something that they weren’t a part of. And that was quite sad because we had a lot of good people there.”

When approached by The Athletic for his thoughts on the scandal and everything that has happened at KSI, Bergsson said, “It’s being looked into by an independent committee, which was my initial suggestion, and I think it is not appropriate for me to comment on at this time.”

Bergsson has stated that he dealt with two cases during his four years as KSI president: Sigthorsson, which was settled in March 2018, and Dalia’s claims, which came to his attention (and some others at KSI) in June this year, initially via social media.

The extent to which Bergsson should have communicated with the KSI board about those two incidents is the subject of much debate. His argument appears to be that he could not have told the board as the issues were confidential, both in terms of the alleged victims and the players involved. Sources have told The Athletic, however, that board members believe they should have been told about the accusations before.

In the wake of Bergsson’s departure, the KSI board issued a statement apologising for their initial response to the issues that Vilhjalmsdottir had raised in her newspaper column. “It should be noted that the (original) statement was based on limited information available to the board at the time, but lacked data and further information, which has emerged at a later stage,” read the statement.

By the following evening, the KSI board had departed too, falling on their sword after accepting that they had to take responsibility for “the issues raised in recent days” and recognising that the wider football community in Iceland had lost faith in their ability to “lead the work of repairing things that have gone wrong”.

By that stage, it was a badly kept secret that striker Sigthorsson was the player who had allegedly assaulted and sexually harassed Arnarsdottir and her friend in 2017. IFK Gothenburg, Sigthorsson’s club side, issued a statement on the Monday, acknowledging that one of their players was implicated but stopped short of naming him.

Two days later, Sigthorsson issued his own statement, accepting that his behaviour towards Arnarsdottir and her friend was “not exemplary”, but denying that he harassed either woman or resorted to violence. Sigthorsson admitted that he offered to settle the case with a payment to both women and also revealed that he paid £17,200 to the non-governmental organisation Stigamot “in recognition of their important work on behalf of survivors of sexual violence”.

Amid all this chaos off the field, Iceland had to name a squad for three upcoming World Cup qualifiers in Reykjavik, and the plot thickens when it comes to how they went about finalising players for those matches against Romania, North Macedonia and Germany.

One highly placed source told The Athletic that Vilhjalmsdottir, whose newspaper column had been the catalyst for this furore, was invited into the offices at KSI, shown a list of Iceland players and, based on allegations that she had heard, asked to decide who could and could not be selected. There have been other suggestions that Steinunn Gydu- og Gudjonsdottir, who works for Stigamot, the organisation where Sigthorsson made a donation, was also involved in that process.

Asked about these claims, Vilhjalmsdottir confirmed to The Athletic that she visited KSI headquarters on the Sunday that Bergsson resigned and was presented with a list of players before the squad was officially announced, but she categorically denies having had any influence on the selection.

“I was invited to come to talk to two of the female board members. I asked Steinunn, as my friend, to come with me to be a witness to the meeting. We had this talk with Borghildur (Sigurdardottir) and Ragnhildur (Skuladottir), and Kolbrun Hrund (the ISI board member), so it was five of us women at this meeting, which was very good,” she says, referring to a discussion that was organised by KSI to put plans in place for external professionals to review their response to sexual and physical violence within football.

“At the end of the meeting, Borghildur and Ragnhildur took out a list of players chosen for the following game with Romania. And they said to us, ‘Can you verify if you know about any allegations towards these players?’ And we said, ‘We can’t discuss that. We have no permission to talk about any cases we have heard about.’ They already knew about Kolbeinn (Sigthorsson).”

Sigthorsson was disappointed to be left out of the squad — a decision that was made by the outgoing board once they found out about Arnarsdottir’s allegations — and also with the way that process was handled. “This decision was made without anyone at KSI contacting Kolbeinn for information and no effort was made to get his side of the story,” Sigthorsson’s lawyer, told The Athletic. “To this day, Kolbeinn has not been asked for his side of the incident (in 2017). This is the respect given to the nation’s top scorer.”

At that time, it had still not been publicly reported that Gunnarsson was one of the two Iceland players implicated in the 2010 rape case. The fact that Gunnarsson had COVID-19 at the end of August meant that there was no need for his name to come up in conversation when the squad was being finalised. That all changed, however, when Gunnarsson declared himself fit for October’s qualifiers.

When Gunnarsson was not included in the squad, many assumed that Vanda Sigurgeirsdottir, the new president, had intervened. She told The Athletic that is untrue and said that Arnar Vidarsson, Iceland’s coach, had already made that call. “He (Vidarsson) asked for a meeting with me before I was elected, and before I had even met the board, and he told me his decision — it’s not an easy decision of course.”

Gunnarsson was angry and upset by his omission and, via a lengthy statement, explained that he had informed KSI that he had done nothing wrong “in relation to the alleged culture of violence within the Football Association” and also claimed that the incoming board had “without a mandate, exerted itself to cancel me”.

Elaborating on that last comment, Gunnarsson accused the board of bowing to demands “founded on vague rumours” and went on to mention how “an event that occurred in Copenhagen in 2010 has been widely discussed on social media”.

The 32-year-old claimed that he had not “violated any person or woman” and, after expressing his frustration with “street justice”, said that he had taken the decision “to ask the police to allow me to give a formal statement about that night 11 years ago”.

Eggert Jonsson’s name was not reported in the media until last week, prompting the 33-year-old former Hearts, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Fleetwood defender to issue a statement.

“In recent weeks, the media have covered an incident that is said to have taken place in Copenhagen in 2010 where two national team members have been accused of serious offences. I’m one of the national team members in question.

“It is a devastating shock to be accused of a horrific violent crime due to an incident that certainly did not occur in the way described in the media. I have tried to hide myself and my family from the media spotlight, as I had not been named until the publication of Stundin’s news today. On October 1, however, I had already requested to be summoned for questioning to explain my side.

“However, as I have not yet had the opportunity to explain my case in the right forum and due to the media coverage today, I do not consider myself to have any choice but to step forward and publicly declare that I am completely innocent of what I have been accused of. I hope the case gets back on track as soon as possible so I can clear myself of these allegations.”

Alarmingly, across five days in Reykjavik earlier this month, when we interviewed a wide range of people with inside knowledge of the KSI scandal, we were told time and again to expect more accusations to follow in the weeks and months to come.

Indeed, last Wednesday it was revealed that OFGAR, a feminist activist group, sent a letter to KSI on the eve of October’s squad announcement detailing further allegations of sexual or violent offences. The document is now being dealt with by the National Olympic and Sports Association of Iceland (ISI), which sits above KSI. “It’s in the notes from the board meeting that the letter had been received and discussed,” said Omar Smarason, KSI’s head of communications, who confirmed to The Athletic that all the cases were then forwarded to ISI’s sports and youth communications consultant.

Sigurgeirsdottir, who has succeeded Bergsson as president, shakes her head when asked whether all of this runs much deeper, and if there was something inherently wrong with the culture inside Iceland’s national team. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there,” Sigurgeirsdottir says. “I understand that it’s not one (case), it’s many. But I can say that we have to change the culture.”

Hilmar Jokull, who is the bass drummer for the supporters’ group Tolfan and has followed Iceland all over Europe, admits that he has found himself struggling to process it all, especially when his mind is filled with so many wonderful memories.

“I agree with everyone who says it taints the legacy,” Jokull says. “I watch the older games a lot (on TV), I went to the Euros (in 2016) and I went to the World Cup (in 2018). It kind of doesn’t change my personal feelings and memories of the games that I have. But of course it changes the perspective of the national team.”

---

It is Wednesday evening and Hulda is one of six women who have agreed to meet with The Athletic at Hofdatorg Tower, a tall office block that is near downtown Reykjavik and has beautiful views across the skyline of Iceland’s capital city.

Hulda, Helga, Ninna, Tanja and Olof are all members of OFGAR, a radical feminist activist group that formed on social media earlier this year focused on fighting gender-based violence as well as giving survivors (that word is preferred to “victims” in Iceland) a voice. The other woman is Arnarsdottir , whose public allegation that she was sexually harassed and physically assaulted by an Iceland player effectively served notice on the entire KSI board.

The mood is relaxed as everyone pulls up a chair in one of the lobby rooms. It is an open floor and the fact that the discussion flows freely for more than an hour says much about the strength of feeling in the room when it comes to not just what has happened with the national team but also the broader treatment of women in Icelandic society around allegations of sexual and physical violence.

As we start to discuss the KSI scandal and the fallout from it, the frustration in the voices of these women is easy to hear.

“We have been globally advertised as this ‘amazing feminist paradise’ — come here!” Hulda says. “Even when we are listening to foreign podcasts, it says, ‘Oh my God, this is a crime that has happened in Iceland and it’s the safest country in the world.’ But here you are tonight sitting with women who all have been sexually violated. We’re like: ‘The safest country where?’

“This is such a false narrative that has been put into our minds, ‘You live in such a safe world, why are you complaining?’. And then it’s the silencing that we’ve been put through for decades, that we are now allowed to use our voice because we have it so good; we don’t.”

“We are at a crossroads now,” explains Tanja. “Every time we have a #MeToo movement, we get stories and we don’t do much about it. We listen and we’re like, ‘Oh, this is disgusting.’ But we don’t want to talk about it. It’s head down. But we’re continuing to talk about it and that’s why some men are so angry with us — they see it as boring.”

Helga nods. “Constantly, survivors are coming to us with their stories, about football players, about musicians, about actors, which means that our job is not done, which means that we are not stopping.”

It transpires that their comments around the KSI scandal and the national team have gone down particularly badly with some. “People are really angry at us,” Hulda adds. “They say, ‘You ruined football for us’.”

“We are getting so many messages, like ‘Go kill yourself’. ‘You need to be raped’,” Tanja says. “And, ‘Girls, you don’t know anything about football’.”

“We never said we did know anything about football,” Helga adds, smiling and prompting laughter from a few of the others.

Some of the women do follow football though. Or at least they did. “For me, because I loved the Icelandic national team, it’s going to take me a long time to be able to go to watch them play again,” Olof says, looking and sounding genuinely upset and angry. “And the Viking clap is ruined. Never again. It represents the face of someone I completely stand against.”

Although the conversation is emotive for obvious reasons, there are moments of humour too. Tanja, who has joined the rest of us via Zoom because she lives in Norway, is so keen to talk that the others have to tell her to stay quiet now and again to let them have a turn to speak.

Arnarsdottir, the woman earlier in the story who was the first to speak out about the allegations against the team, spends the first 15 minutes or so listening to everyone else before the conversation turns to her own situation. She talks quietly and calmly about the whole episode, her voice never raised but occasionally betraying signs of frustration, especially when it comes to a particularly sensitive document that was posted on social media.

Asked specifically about the original incident with striker Sigthorsson back in 2017, she explains that she reported it to police the next day and wanted to press charges. “But the justice system in Iceland is very flawed when it comes to these cases, so nothing happened,” she adds. “Then Kolbeinn was picked for a game that my family was actually going to watch, and my father didn’t want my little brother to watch the man that hurt me, so that’s when he reported the incident to KSI. And that’s when the ball really started rolling.”

According to Arnarsdottir, former KSI president Bergsson spoke to her father on several occasions and their discussions were cordial. “Gudni wanted to make it right and he wanted there to be repercussions.”

Whether there were repercussions or not is unclear. Arnarsdottir says that Sigthorsson was not selected for the national team for a period because of the incident. Sources close to Sigthorsson believe that he was only ever left out because of injuries. What nobody disputes is that Sigthorsson did not want an ongoing police investigation hanging over him with the 2018 World Cup finals on the horizon, and that led to his lawyer contacting the legal representatives for Arnarsdottir and her friend — both women had pressed charges — with a view to resolving the case privately.

“I started to get phone calls because he didn’t want the charges to go through the justice system, he wanted to settle,” Arnarsdottir says. “And in the end, I decided that that was the way that I wanted to go as well because he sat down in front of me and he apologised. And he was sorry, I thought, until he gave that statement a couple of weeks ago, when he said that he didn’t recognise any of the things I was saying.”

Asked what Sigthorsson had said to her when they met up in 2018, Arnarsdottir replies, “He admitted that he didn’t remember much, so he asked me to tell him what he did to me, so I told him what happened. And that’s when he said, ‘Well, I’m not going to say that I didn’t do it’ because he didn’t remember, so he apologised and he admitted to it.”

Sigthorsson’s statement last month finished with him saying that KSI had been informed of the proceedings (around the 2017 incident) “but the association’s denial in Icelandic media recently has led to Arnarsdottir feeling she was being robbed of her closure by the association. I can understand that”.

“Yeah,” says Arnarsdottir , looking incredulous. “That’s probably the only accurate thing he said in there.”

When later contacted by The Athletic about Arnarsdottir comments and the 2017 incident, Sigthorsson’s lawyer said that at no stage has his client admitted to physical or sexual violence. Their recollection of this night is definitely not the same. “Kolbeinn was aware that he lost his temper, following repeated harassment by Arnarsdottir , and may have abused her verbally and asked for her to be removed from the club,” his lawyer said. “He did realise that his behaviour had not been up to his personal and professional standard. For that, and Arnarsdottir’s experience, he was truly sorry.”

Back in our discussion in Reykjavik, Olof shakes her head after a few of the others talk about the way that women who make allegations against men are treated. “Arnarsdottir’s police report is leaked on Facebook by a lawyer. In what world does this happen?” Olof asks.

She is referring to Supreme Court attorney Sigurdur Gudni Gudjonsson’s decision to post extracts from Arnarsdottir’s police report on his Facebook page, together with a withering attack on her credibility. Gudjonsson is also chairman of KSI’s appeals committee, which deals with complaints against players and staff who are alleged to have broken the association’s rules, and the lawyer for Bakarameistarinn, the largest bakery chain in Iceland. Bakarameistarinn is one of the national team’s sponsors and it is owned by Sigthorsson’s parents.

His decision to post sections of the 2017 police report was condemned by the chairman of the Icelandic Bar Association, Sigurdur Orn Hilmarsson, who described it as “extremely distasteful”, and also heavily criticised by Gudjonsson’s daughter, who wrote underneath her father’s Facebook post, “Oh, Dad, this post is not helpful to you or Kolbeinn’s cause.”

Asked why he posted the reports on Facebook, how he gained access to them and whether he regretted his actions, Gudjonsson told The Athletic, “The reason was to correct false accusations against Kolbeinn Sigthorsson.” He has said previously that he felt able to post them as he was not involved in the cases and they had been settled.

“From whom I did receive the report is not relevant,” Gudjonsson continues. “They do just disclose facts and do show the accusations brought against Kolbeinn were totally wrong. I do not regret what I have done and said for the last two months regarding this unprecedented assault on the KSI and some members of the men’s football team.”

Arnarsdottir reveals in our discussion that she has taken legal action in the wake of the police report appearing on Facebook. It is later confirmed via her solicitor that she has submitted a complaint to the solicitor association’s disciplinary committee against Gudjonsson for violating the solicitor’s code of ethics and “complained to the data protection authority about the publication of personal information which is not a public matter”.

Ninna, one of the women who met with The Athletic, sighs. “It’s always two steps forward and one step backwards with everything we’re doing.”

“We feel like we’re shovelling shit in a snowstorm,” adds Hulda.

Olof brings up the fact that the Burnley midfielder Johann Berg Gudmundsson withdrew from the Iceland squad for this month’s World Cup qualifiers. “He stepped down from the team because he was a little bit injured. He said that the Football Association, how they decided to do things, was one of the main factors why he decided to step down from the team.”

“Reading his statement on why he wasn’t going to play, it was like, ‘I can’t play with my friends so I’m going home’,” Ninna adds.

“It’s putting pressure on the victims, who are accused of ruining everything,” says Tanja. “Instead of stepping up and saying, ‘I believe you, I stand by you and I hate violence’, they (effectively) say, ‘No, I can’t play because my friends can’t play anymore, and you are the bad people’.”

One senior figure in Icelandic sport tells The Athletic that she admires those involved in OFGAR for having a voice and “saying things that women my age and older didn’t say, so I’m very glad that they are doing that”. But she also admits there are times when their stance comes across as unforgiving and uncompromising, and she says that makes her feel a little uneasy.

Clearly, some of what the women are saying here is opinion. Equally, the group as a whole are also talking with a personal understanding of how women feel when they have suffered sexual violence, and it is also worth bearing in mind that they are in regular contact with survivors, not just in the football world but across the whole of Icelandic society. 

You wonder how the women would feel about the possibility of the Iceland players at the centre of the allegations representing their country in the future. “If they violently assault someone, are they completely out?” Hulda asks. “We believe in Iceland that our society is built on rehabilitation. And of course we would like in a perfect world that people would be able to get the help that they need.”

“We need clear rules, everyone needs to know what can happen,” Tanja adds. “You need to get the chance to say you’re sorry and you need to talk to the survivor, ask them if they’re OK with you playing on the team, say you will seek help or therapy. Then you can have a second chance. But if it’s 15 times, it’s a big no.”

“I think it’s also a bare minimum when you have a privilege, that you lose a part of your privilege,” Olof says. “When you take something from someone, like when you sexually abuse someone, we are asking for consequences for your actions. It is a privilege (to play for Iceland) and you’re representing your country and you are a role model for a lot of kids. But it also depends on whether you are a serial predator, and what you did. Like for me, a gang rape allegation, get the fuck out.”

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In a small room above the coffee shop that he owns in Reykjavik, Petur Marteinsson contemplates what all of this means for Iceland’s golden generation and whether their wonderful achievements — reaching the quarter-finals at Euro 2016 and qualifying for the World Cup finals two years later — are now viewed in a different light.

“Well, the verdict is out,” the former Iceland and Stoke winger says. “We don’t know how those players and the federation will tackle it in the end. I think there is still the opportunity to come out in a good way, so to speak. But obviously, short-term at least, this has ruined the reputation and the legacy.

“This generation of players are legends. And of course there are just a few of them that have been mentioned as having done something wrong; 90 per cent haven’t. But I think for the future they still bear some responsibility to come out and smell the coffee that society is changing, and how we need to change, and how we talk about this.”

Marteinsson elaborates on that last point by explaining how, in his opinion, for a lot of men over the age of 30 in Iceland, the knee-jerk response to the sort of allegations that have been made during the last six weeks is to dismiss them and empathise with the perpetrator. “’Gerenda medvirkni’ is what we say in Iceland. It means you hear something and automatically say, ‘No, he’s such a good guy, I can’t believe that.’

“We are always denying it,” adds the 48-year-old. “If a hero or a legend has done something against a woman it is put under the mattress. We don’t talk about it. But now it is different times and we have to learn to tackle it. We need to believe the women that say they have experienced some sexual violence.”

What is hard to ignore with Iceland is the fact that it is not an isolated allegation. Several alleged incidents are being looked into after that letter was discussed at the last KSI board meeting and some cases are in the hands of the police. All of which brings that word “culture” back into the discussion.

One source who knows the Iceland players well starts by dismissing the idea that there was anything wrong with the culture of the national team, and runs through each claim to prove, in his mind, that there is no common thread. Yet by the end of his answer, he is starting to tot up the cases and finds himself admitting that it doesn’t look good.

Kolbrun Hrund Sigurgeirsdottir, who earlier rejected any talk of a cover-up by KSI board members, has some interesting thoughts of her own. As a former chairwoman of a top-flight club in Iceland and a gender specialist who is currently leading a working group with a view to make recommendations to KSI on how to improve the culture within all its national teams, she is well qualified to talk on the subject.

Sigurgeirsdottir agrees there is “no evidence” that football has a bigger problem with attitudes and behaviour towards women than any other profession in Iceland. But she does wonder about the subliminal messages that professional footballers receive because of their status and profile, and how that changes their perception around everyday life, especially when they start to play for the national team.

Her mind turns to Iceland’s golden generation and that victory over England at Euro 2016. “They were our heroes and everybody loved them. But that took them further away from reality,” she says. “And of course they get a lot of attention from girls and from women, and I think they don’t know how to handle it. And I think they have misused it too many times and thought they were entitled to do what they were doing.”

A few hours before the Armenia game, The Athletic met up with Stein­unn Gydu- og Gudjons­dott­ir, the employee at Stiga­mot, a centre for survivors of sexual violence and where Kolbeinn Sigthorsson made his donation following the incident in 2017. Gydu- og Gudjons­dott­ir is also involved in one of the working groups at KSI, and it is interesting to know whether she thinks people are more or less likely to come forward with allegations of sexual violence in the wake of what has happened with the national team.

“Both,” Gydu- og Gudjons­dott­ir says. “A lot of things have happened in connection with this case. In the beginning, there was a lot of outrage when the head of KSI had to step down and then eventually the whole board… it really felt like the whole of society was with us and they were on board with survivors. But then a few days later there was like this backlash.

“The one survivor who had stepped forward, Arnarsdottir, was being slut-shamed, made out like she was not trustworthy, so many forces came together to put all kinds of labels on her. And for other survivors who are out there looking, they’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, I will never talk about the violence that happened to me. I will never go forward and I will never press charges.’ So that’s what many survivors see.”

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At the national stadium in Reykjavik, just across the room from the board table where some of its former members were in tears last month, KSI’s new president Sigurgeirsdottir asks if the tape is still recording at the end of our interview.

There is a message, she says, that needs to be reinforced. “I stand firmly against violence and this is something that we don’t want to tolerate at all. For me, it’s very important that that’s very clear. We are going to listen to victims and we are going to put a system in place that will protect them.”

A former international football and basketball player for Iceland, Sigurgeirsdottir is the first female president in the federation’s history. It is only her second day on the job when we meet up and coincides with the Armenia match later in the evening. She knows what to expect there. “We have not sold that many tickets, and I understand. I’m not angry at people for not coming to games. I’m not blaming anyone. It always takes time to rebuild trust and change culture.”

Sigurgeirsdottir acknowledges that the sort of culture she is talking about is “not just a problem in football” but adds, “I don’t care about that, though. I’m not going to say we are not going to do anything because it’s a societal problem. We are going to take responsibility there.

“In our national teams we have to start early, when they come in at under-15 level, and I’m talking about all our players, boys and girls. And this is already on the drawing board. And also I think we have to start younger, that’s why I want to cooperate with school authorities and the minister of education because I think that we have to go all the way to very young children in schools about this cultural thing and educate them.”

Sigurgeirsdottir comes across as one of those people whose glass is permanently half-full, yet there are aspects of this story where it is desperately hard to find rays of light. She listens to former player Marteinsson’s quote about the legacy of Iceland’s golden generation being ruined and nods when asked whether she feels the same way. “Yeah,” Sigurgeirsdottir says, looking upset. “I am sad in my heart.”

That list of things to work on is long and includes the introduction of prevention and intervention programmes. But the highest priority on her list, she says, is how KSI deals with those who come forward with claims. “I want them to feel secure and know that this is not something that we will sweep under the carpet or put in a drawer. We have to do this, we have to make it right.”

What has also become clear since the end of August — and this picks up on the earlier point made by Hilmar Jokull, from the supporters’ group — is that there needs to be a legal framework in place at KSI for how to deal with national team players accused of serious offences. As Sigurgeirsdottir puts it, “When is a case a case?” It is not a straightforward question to answer and would no doubt divide opinion among the public.

One plan is to draw up a contract that all Icelandic national team players will have to sign, agreeing to abide by certain rules. At present, there is nothing like that and it is understood that KSI has received warnings from lawyers that they could be sued for suspending players from international duty when they have not been charged by the police.

Some national team players have been critical of the way that KSI has treated their team-mates. Gudmundsson, the Burnley winger, is among them and has spoken publicly about how he feels. “I can fully admit that it influenced my decision (to withdraw from the squad) this time, that I have not been completely satisfied with the FA’s working methods in recent months,” Gudmundsson said to the Icelandic media recently.

Asked about players who are showing solidarity with absent team-mates and unhappy with KSI’s handling of the story, Sigurgeirsdottir replies, “I have a message for them: if you are unhappy about anything, it doesn’t have to be around these cases, please come and talk to us. Because that’s one of the things that I promised — that I was going to listen to people, that I’m going to have conversations.”

Sigurgeirsdottir goes on to explain how she plans to travel to Romania and North Macedonia with the national team next month for their final World Cup qualifiers, when she wants to “talk to the players and hear their opinions, not just about this, about everything”.

Her positivity is admirable and she sounds very much like a woman with a plan, yet she also knows that the only way Iceland will come through this period is by working together.

“This has been a pretty high fall. From being the nation’s favourite, we are in the cellar, at the bottom of the ravine, and we are trying to climb back up. But we cannot do it alone. The sponsors and the clubs around the country, the fans of football, we need their support, we need help. We are trying to do better. So please don’t jump ship now.”