The Scottish FA have hit back at their Norwegian counterparts after Stale Solbakken criticised the late cancellation of a pre-World Cup bounce game and branded Steve Clarke ‘unprofessional.’
The two nations planned to play a training ground bounce game in North Carolina today.
Clarke made a decision to pull the plug on the exercise after utilising most of his squad during Friday’s 4-0 win over Bolivia in New Jersey.
Co-ordinated by Scotland’s Football Operations Manager Michael Hughes the Norwegians were informed the following day that the Scots were reluctant to risk any further injuries after Billy Gilmour’s World Cup was ended by injury during the Hampden send off against Curacao.
Speaking after Norway’s 1-1 draw with Scotland’s Group C opponents Morocco Solbakken described Scotland’s stance as ‘surprising.’
"It is unprofessional of Scotland,” he told broadcasters. “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.
"But we have to live with that. That's why we adjusted a bit in the game."
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A Scottish FA spokesperson expressed ‘surprise’ at the Norwegians airing the issue in public saying: "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."
Speaking before Solbakken commented publicly Clarke said of the issue: "It was just going to be a training game for an hour at our training ground. We picked up one or two niggles last week and decided it wasn't worth the risk."
The Norwegians kick off their campaign against Iraq, three days after Scotland face Haiti in Boston.
Norway's team manager, former Fulham defender Brede Hangeland, said that they had based their World Cup preparations on the closed-doors friendly ‘for many months’.
Training in Greensboro, 90 miles from Scotland's training camp in Charlotte,’ the Norway operations manager said: "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."
