Norway Cup Brings 126 Nations in Oslo

This summer’s biggest football organization, Norway Cup started yesterday, 26 July. 

One of the world’s biggest football organizations, Norway Cup lasts one week, ending on first of August.

A popular event during the tournament is the great Norway Cup Show with international and national artists. The show starts with a fantastic parade.

As every year, footballers, fans and team leaders filled the road across Ekebergsletta with their parade on Saturday. 

The whole parade took 40 minutes to get from the camping to the stage, and the last participants were still waiting to start when the first ones arrived by the stage. By this point the parade filled the whole road from the stage to the end of Ekebergsletta.

There are also many additional activities this week: concerts, miniature golf, non-alcoholic disco, celebrity match, amusement park, and of course football.

History of the Tournament

The tournament first began in 1977. In that year, the organizer Bækkelagets Sports Club arranged both the Oslo Cup in handball and Norway Cup at the same time. However, only Norway Cup has continued till today.

In the first years of the arrangement, only Norwegian and European teams participated in the tournament. In 1972, only seven European countries were represented with 126 teams. In 1979, the Brazilian team Pequeninos from Sao Paulo came to Norway Cup. This team consisted of poor children from the slums in their country. For them, the trip to the Norway Cup was a glimpse of hope and encouragement in comparison to the misery at home. At the same time, these youths conquered the whole of Ekebergsletta and quickly became the tournament’s favorites. That was the beginning of what today is one of the most important issues for Norway Cup: the colorful friendship.

Also, that tournament was the beginning of internationalization of the cup. More than a thousand teams participated in Norway Cup in 1979. Since that time, Norway Cup has had more than a thousand participating teams from all over the world.

The world’s largest organization in its kind

In the period between 1972 and 2010, a total of 44.479 teams have participated in Norway Cup, while the the nearest competitor Swedish Gothia Cup could attract 31.540 teams.

Check the organization website

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