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.The aid fund would go towards developing facilities in Bayelsa State.This was acceptable for the board, but after a couple of online searches, none of them dared to travel to the rough region, so they agreed that Golden could keep them updated on developments with photographs.How difficult would it be to find a picture of an artificial grass pitch?The money from the transfer was used to cover Arild Golden’s travel costs, and the club chairman’s private holidays.Honestly, do they really need artificial pitches in Nigeria?It had worked out, but it was still messy.Loose-tongued board members were grumbling about it, and amateurs like Chukwudi were always a threat.From now on, only Golden’s lawyers would have access to his deals.‘No comment,’ said Golden.‘And if you carry on making insinuations like this, I’ll sue you from here to eternity.’“Posh” and “Becks”First came the pink graphics, then two arrows flew by with Per and Sabrina’s names embroidered on ribbons trailing below.From the opposite side came a heart-shaped football.The arrows hit the ball, penetrating it, and they all flew down towards Ullevaal Stadion.In the centre circle was an animated version of the young couple kissing in front of a capacity crowd.One by one, the letters appeared on the green grass: PDTV.When life became complicated, Benedikte thought, there was only one thing to do: watch reality TV.She’d tried many times to justify her love for the genre.Call it mental pornography, escapism or whatever else, the truth was that Benedikte loved it.They worse they got, the programmes only seemed to get more enjoyable.Her current favourite was MTV’s A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, in which the bisexual presenter was chatted up by both men and women.PDTV hadn’t yet qualified for a podium spot in reality TV heaven, but there had been some priceless scenes, such as when Marius Bjartmann and his wife came round for dinner.Watching Bjartmann eating sushi with chopsticks was unforgettable.It looked like the centre-back was wearing windproof mittens.The item had been so popular that the producers were considering introducing a regular dinner feature.Norwegians couldn’t get enough of watching famous people eat.Football used to be shy and maybe even a little boring.That was until David Beckham married Posh Spice.Soon we would hear that Becks had taken a boot on the head from a hot-tempered Alex Ferguson, that Zlatan got into fights with numerous teammates, and that most coaches thought they were Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday, all stories that once would’ve stayed in the changing rooms.In any case, a reality TV series about a Norwegian footballer’s life wouldn’t have happened before David met Victoria.The fact that Beckham had gone on playing well while he became a public figure made it easier for Vålerenga to accept their highest-profile player marketing himself like this.Vålerenga had also had the opportunity for various product placements that they, in turn, had sold on to their sponsors.At the same time, they coached everyone from their own management on the importance of describing PDTV as ‘good PR’.Vålerenga had grown to become top of the class in financial terms, having once done their accounts on hot-dog wrappers.The club’s great financial sobriety meant its accounts for the previous year had only marginally gone tens of millions of kroner into the red, and now they’d set themselves the unenviable target of actually balancing the books.They couldn’t let any potential revenue sources slip away.The club knew that, if they managed to balance the books and have a Norwegian football club making money, they would be responsible for the greatest revolution in football since the invention of the goal.But the rights to the concept, and to the big money, belonged to Golden Boys and the newspaper VG, whose website hosted the series, and they were already talking about expanding the idea to other top Norwegian players.Maybe they could even come up with the Holy Grail of Norwegian TV, something that would break NRK’s stranglehold on Friday evenings, At Home with the Riises.PDTV had started as a low-budget project, but then Diesen moved in with Sabrina, and his form on the pitch improved at the same rate as the number of views for his videos.For the sake of appearances, VG had taken a short production break in connection with the death of Golden, but now it was being rumoured that they wanted to put even more resources into the programme.Golden’s murder was, on balance, good news.For ratings.The camera panned through the living room.The interior decoration magazines that had done picture stories on their apartment had described it as ‘hypermodern, but not without warmth and cosiness’.The flooring consisted of wide wooden boards painted gloss white, the furniture looked old but wasn’t really, and even the mess looked planned.Benedikte imagined the interior designers arguing about the selection of magazines to put there and the angle at which to display them on the white wooden chair.Dagbladet’s Saturday supplement had also featured their home on its front cover, which was guaranteed to annoy their main competitors from VG, who had shown Diesen and Sabrina embracing, reflected in the bathroom mirror.An artistic black-and-white photo, accompanied by 14 occurrences of the word ‘sex’ in the text below.VG had wanted an exclusivity agreement, but it hit a brick wall in negotiations with Golden.Players, coaches, club managers and NFF executives, Benedikte had spoken with many people who’d dealt with Golden, and they all spoke of him like a god.If he entered a room with a few people in it, he’d own all of them.Who else could’ve made 100 million kroner out of a TV contract? 100 million kroner that should’ve gone to the football world itself [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]