Scottish FA defend actions as Norway fume over cancelled friendly

The Scottish Football Association has defended its actions over a cancelled friendly after Scotland head coach Steve Clarke was branded “unprofessional” by Norway counterpart Stale Solbakken.

The teams are both based in North Carolina for their World Cup campaigns and planned a closed-doors match at Scotland’s training ground in Charlotte on Monday.

But the Norwegian Football Federation announced on Sunday it had been called off because of injuries in the Scotland camp.

Solbakken spoke out after his side drew 1-1 with Scotland’s Group C rivals Morocco.

He told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK: “It was at least as surprising to me, and it is unprofessional of Scotland. It is unprofessional that the coach has not called me, that they use the team manager and call and say it after we have finished training.

“I don’t think the injuries they’re blaming came from the last training session. That’s not the case. It’s disappointing. It’s unprofessional.”

Norway’s team manager, former Fulham defender Brede Hangeland, told NRK: “We have been working on that match for many months. It is embarrassing to cancel it a couple of days before.

“We can’t do anything about it, we just have to forget about it and make the best of it.

“But there has been a lot of organisation, agreements and gentlemen’s agreements, and then suddenly they don’t want to. I think that was weak, so to speak.”

A Scottish FA spokesperson said: “The behind-closed-doors training game was organised and arranged between the respective team managers – not the head coaches – and this was the same process we followed when we regrettably had to cancel on Saturday.

“We have had some injuries during our previous friendlies, and when it became apparent that a training game would bring greater risk than potential preparatory reward, we alerted the Norway team manager as soon as possible.

“We believe this was the right and consistent process. The game was also due to be behind closed doors and not announced publicly – so we were surprised when news of the game broke via Norwegian media.”

Clarke had told BBC Scotland at the weekend that his quad had “picked up one or two niggles last week” and decided the 60-minute game was not worth the risk.

Norway are based at Greensboro, about 90 miles from Scotland’s training camp in Charlotte.