Female players for the otherwise highly regarded Baekkelaget sports club's A-team cast off more than their uniforms when they posed for the controversial calendar earlier this year. The goal was to generate funds, with all members of the club helping out with sales.
That included children playing for the youth clubs, many of whom, some argue, shouldn't even be allowed to see the calendar's suggestive photos.
"This is highly inappropriate, and I've said so to the leaders of Baekkelaget," local handball official Bjoern Tore Lie told newspaper Aftenposten.
One parent, who complained about the sales in a letter to the newspaper, wondered whether she should send her nine-year-old daughter out to sell the calendar. "Who should she sell it to, her grandmother? Her neighbors?," wrote the parent. "Should we parents try to sell it at work? No, this just isn't right!"
Club leaders insist that sales activity "is strictly voluntary" and only meant to give "a helping hand" to the club.
"If some people are offended by this, we apologize," said Baekkelaget leader Henning Stordal. "Personally, I think the calendar is fine, but it is perhaps wrong to have our youngest players selling it."
