The course of a FIFA World Cup is unpredictable: any team can defeat another if it is sufficiently motivated. The only certain thing is what happens in the stands, where fans enjoy or suffer like never before and royal families compete with celebrities for the eye of the ‘fan cams’. In this 2026 World Cup we are seeing it more than ever: the attendance of kings, princes and princesses is unprecedented. In the case of Norway, the mobilization of the royal family is doubly significant.
No one misses the critical moment that the Norwegian monarchy is going through, which this year is navigating its own ‘annus horribilis’. A quick summary: hospitalizations of King Harald and Queen Sonja; publication of messages that proved the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile and trafficker of minors, and Princess Mette-Marit; trial and imprisonment of Marius Borg, the princess’s eldest son and out of the line of succession; a lung transplant for the princess, from which she is recovering favorably.
Thus, it makes sense that neither the current kings Harald and Sonja, now octogenarians, nor the princes Haakon and Mette-Marit, with the latter convalescent, attended some of the venues of World Cup 2026 to follow Norway’s national team. However, no royal house, and even less those in need of boosting their popularity, can miss the opportunity to link themselves to the great spectacle of football, the most popular and one of the very few things that transcends ideologies. The unwritten rule goes like this: in the victories of a national team, the monarchy is the talisman; in defeats, the consolation.
Ingrid Alexandra and Sverre Magnus, in the Front Row
Luckily for the Norwegian Crown, the current royal family can count on three generations in active service, although the younger ones have had to abandon their studies and holidays to contribute to the task of overcoming this reputational crisis. Princess Ingrid Alexandra, the future queen, moved her university enrollment from Sydney to Oslo, given her mother’s health and the expected increase in her representational duties. Her brother Sverre Magnus, until now in a comfortable third row, has become her companion, for example at the 2026 World Cup, where everything happened.
The moment could not have been better for the royal family and, above all, for Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, both seated in the box of the New Jersey Stadium in New York, where the match between Brazil and Norway was played. It was a celebration, because the Norwegians had never won in an knockout stage of a World Cup: they had not advanced from the group stage for 28 years. Doing so against a five-time champion gave even more epic to the victory.
The Princess’s Greeting to Haaland, Shirtless
The enthusiasm for this victory explains everything that happened afterwards and, above all, a scene that has all of Norway ‘on fire’. It happened when Prince Sverre Magnus and Princess Ingrid Alexandra, more than happy, wanted to greet the football players to congratulate them in person, especially Erling Haaland, the best player of the match. For this purpose, they were able to access the locker rooms where the players were already celebrating. A place, as protocol experts know, especially ‘dangerous’ for royals.
In the end, what happened next was the expected, without anyone foreseeing or being able to prevent it: upon entering the locker room, the team’s star Haaland was half naked. Shirtless, he gave a hug to Princess Ingrid Alexandra that the cameras captured to ensure it would be recorded. In fact, the Norwegian Royal House itself published the scene on its social networks, so that the topless moment of the hug to the princess could go viral. And it did go viral.
Prince Haakon and Princess Mette-Marit, convalescent.
On social networks, the comments among those who saw chemistry between Princess Ingrid Alexandra and footballer Haaland went viral along with those who proclaimed an inexplicable breach of protocol and even a sign of disrespect to the future queen. The comments piled up by thousands, with furious discussions about the advisability or not of the scene: on one hand, it portrays the closeness of the royal family with the citizenry; on the other, it breaks the formality and reserve expected of a future queen.
Be that as it may, the Norwegian Royal House reacted promptly to the controversial scene, since a few hours later it released a photograph that swept away the debate about the topless hug to Haaland. In it we could see a very recovered Mette-Marit, sitting in a palace armchair next to Haakon, enjoying the victory of her national team in the 2026 World Cup. Despite the efforts of the Norwegian Crown, and as is often the case in the rest of the European monarchies, all attention remains fixed on her.
