New controversy over Norway’s incredible Viking World Cup team photo: Questions are raised over £3m in cash from nation’s ‘most expensive photograph’

Norway’s viral Viking World Cup photoshoot has come under scrutiny as it is prepared for sale as the country’s ‘most expensive photograph’, according to local reports. 

The national team group photo saw stars including Erling Haaland, Martin Odegaard, and Rasmus Hojlund styled as their historic national forebears on a beach in Oslo, and was captured by renowned photographer David Yarrow. 

But an investigation by Norwegian outlet VG raised questions over the proposed auctioning-off of a range of limited edition prints, which could net Norway’s football federation (NFF) over £3million (39m krone). 

After the sale got underway this week, the NFF has confirmed that a portion of the sale will go to the country’s Children’s Cancer Association. 

However, VG claims that this was only announced after the start of the sale, and that the NFF have failed to disclose what proportion of the proceeds from the sale will go to charity. 

The outlet also raised questions over the copyright of the photograph, with the federation, photographer Yarrow, and the selling galleries which partner with him, including London’s Maddox Gallery, all having a possible claim on a portion of any profits. 

Premier League stars including Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard posed as Vikings

NFF commercial director Runar Pahr Andresen told VG: ‘We do not go into details of financial agreements with various parties. 

‘What we can say is that part of any profits will go to the Children’s Cancer Association, with which the men’s national team has collaborated for several years.’

While the NFF has partnered with the Children’s Cancer Association for over four years, the charity confirmed to the outlet that they had not known that they would receive a donation from the sale until Tuesday. 

‘The Children’s Cancer Association learned about this fantastic initiative today, and is very grateful,’ Secretary General Trine Nicolaysen wrote in a statement to VG. ‘Regardless of the amount, the money will make a difference for children and young people with cancer, and contribute to vital research so that more children survive childhood cancer.’ 

The smallest of the prints available as part of the sale, measuring 64cmx91cm, will cost a potential buyer £7,860 (100,000kr) with the price increasing with the size of the print. 

250 prints have been made available of the photograph, titled ‘The Vikings are Coming’. 

Yarrow himself is no stranger to lasting football iconography, having risen to prominence 40 years ago when he took a memorable photo of Diego Maradona hoisted above his team-mates clutching the World Cup in 1986. 

But the photo’s styling came under fire in the immediate aftermath of its release, with a number of critics calling out the tone and accusing it of alluding to themes of Norwegian neo-Nazism. 

The images were ‘chauvinistic and exclusionary’, according to journalist Markus Slettholm of the newspaper Morgenbladet.

And he went even further in an interview with NRK, saying it is ‘reminiscent of what neo-Nazis were concerned about ten years ago’. 

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