Dirty Tackle

Norwegian lottery winner buys stake in footballer to help local club

Brooks Peck
Dirty Tackle

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Fredrik Semb Berge on the ball. (Morten Tollefsen/odd.no)

The recipient of Norway's biggest ever lottery win has decided to invest a portion of his prize in a talented young footballer who plays for his local club. His windfall wasn't enough to make him the next Sheikh Mansour, but it was enough to allow him to make the most of football's third-party ownership rules (or lack thereof).

From Reuters:

Yngvar Borgesen, who recently won more than 102m Norwegian crowns (£11.5m) on the Eurojackpot lottery, put up 2.5m crowns (£282,000) so that Odd Grenland could keep their promising defender Fredrik Semb Berge, according to the newspaper Verdens Gang.

"I sat and thought about what I could do locally, and the answer was Odd. They have a good profile and mean a lot for the local community," Borgesen told the newspaper.

For his investment, Borgesen was given a 25 percent share of Semb Berge, which means he would get the same percentage of any transfer fee if/when Odd sell the 23-year-old defender. And it could prove to be a rather sweet investment since Semb Berge earned his first two senior caps for Norway earlier this year.

The player told Verdens Gang: "He's a very nice guy who thought it was good to help, so I think this is positive. It means that Odd can get more money for me and that they don't have to sell me at any price."

It also means that Semb Berge has to mow his lawn twice a month, but he apparently hasn't been informed of that yet.

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