A Norwegian bartered five kilograms (roughly 11 pounds) of semi-dried fish for a ticket to Thursday’s semifinal clash between Bodø/Glimt and Tottenham Hotspur in the Arctic Circle, as the hosts aim to become the first Norwegian club to reach a European final.
Some 50,000 fans were vying for just 480 tickets to the second leg of the Bodø/Glimt Europa League semifinal.
After missing out, Torbjørn Eide, a production manager at a fish farm in Senja, offered five kilos of boknafisk, a Norwegian delicacy worth nearly 2,500 Norwegian crowns ($243), in exchange for a ticket.
“We produce Norway’s best boknafisk, and you probably can’t get it in Bodø city. So I thought maybe someone would want it,” Eide told Norway’s state-run broadcaster NRK on Tuesday.
Øystein Aanes, who had a spare ticket because his brother couldn’t make the game, took the bait. “It was just a fun thing,” Aanes told NRK.
Inspired by the deal, Nils Erik Oskal decided to try his luck with five kilos of reindeer meat.
“Someone took the bait. It didn’t take long,” he said.
Oskal’s trade could be worth about 1,000 Norwegian crowns ($97). “But that doesn’t matter, I get to experience something huge,” Oskal said.
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