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the gaps in Benedikte’s knowledge of football agents it was Vålerenga’s development coach.
    Sennikov led Benedikte up the wide metal steps and into the long, narrow corridor where the Vålerenga offices were.
    ‘These offices are reserved for the marketing department. Those of us who work on actual football, we have to fight over these meeting rooms.’
    Andrei spoke without so much as a trace of accent. Although he wasof Russian ancestry, Benedikte knew that he’d lived his whole life in the East End of Oslo, but she still found herself listening out for a foreign twang.
    ‘Sorry, but with everybody complaining to me the whole time, I have to speak my mind now and then.’
    ‘What do they complain about?’
    ‘Either it’s the smaller clubs saying we’re stealing their best talent, or it’s people on the board or even you lot from the media saying we’re not bringing enough good players up through the system. It’s all wrong anyway.’
    ‘How do the transfers from smaller clubs take place? Via an agent?’ Benedikte didn’t have the patience to listen to his complaints.
    ‘There are normally agents involved. It’s not unusual for 13-year-olds and their parents to have advisers.’
    ‘Isn’t there a lower age limit of 15?’
    ‘To get a written contract you have to be 15. Many of them come along to meetings for “support”, or they come up with some other excuse. But you’re right, the players have to be 15 to have a legally binding contract. Anyway, these agents are just getting worse and worse.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked Benedikte.
    ‘We’ve seen some agents going through matches on video with the players.’
    ‘Is that so bad?’
    ‘We’re the ones who are supposed to go through matches with them. We’re supposed to say what they’ve done well or what they can improve on, based on Vålerenga’s playing style. What do you think is at the forefront of an agent’s mind?’ asked Sennikov. For the sake of his forefinger and of the meeting room table, Benedikte hoped that he wouldn’t use the word ‘we’ much more today.
    ‘That the players should make themselves marketable,’ she answered.
    ‘Exactly, so the agents, who often lack any technical background in football whatsoever, tell the players that they shouldn’t pass, but that they should shoot from every possible range; that it’s their own performance that counts, not that of the team.’
    ‘Who are the most active agents?’ asked Benedikte.
    ‘Arild Golden practically had a monopoly on the biggest talent. Things are a lot less clear now that he’s dead. But don’t despair, if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that other vultures will turn up.Would you like some coffee, by the way?’
    Benedikte shook her head. Sennikov pushed down a few times on the top of a large pump-action coffee pot, which squirted out smaller and smaller doses. A gurgling sound filled the meeting room, and eventually Sennikov sat back down. He looked into his cup, which was far from full, and groaned.
    ‘Back to Golden. Have you thought how insane it was that he had his own soccer school? A travelling soccer school. With the pretext of bringing money to smaller clubs, his Golden Boys system allowed him to appraise and make contact with the best 14-year-olds in the country.’
    ‘Pretext? What do you mean?’ asked Benedikte. She’d heard about Golden’s soccer schools, but had thought of them as a charity gesture on his part, as if he’d sucked so much money out of football that he’d decided to organise them on a not-for-profit basis almost to redeem himself.
    ‘Golden let the smaller clubs arrange a camp every year, and the clubs made a couple of hundred thousand kroner out of it, but that wasn’t the main idea behind the camps. The best 14-year-olds took part in the camps with the football association’s blessing. Camps that were off-limits to other agents. Think how ludicrous that is. The Association sent talented players