Haaland’s lawyer, Thomas Hagen, said the case concerns the airline’s alleged use of the footballer’s distinctive features in advertisements promoting its plane tickets during the tournament.
“The case concerns Norwegian’s unlawful use of Haaland’s distinctive signs in its promotion of plane tickets during the football World Cup,” Hagen said in an email to AFP.
The exact details of the dispute have not been made public, but Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang reported that the airline removed a social media post featuring a photo montage of one of its planes with a ponytail attached to it.
The hairstyle was associated with Haaland before he recently cut his hair.
The post reportedly carried the caption, “We’ve never looked more Norwegian,” as the airline celebrated the country’s national team during the tournament.
Norwegian Air Shuttle confirmed that it had received a writ from Haaland but said it found the legal action difficult to understand.
“Like almost all of Norway, we supported the national team this summer, through a few spontaneous posts inspired by trends on social media,” airline spokeswoman Catharina Solli said.
She described the legal action as regrettable and said the company hoped to resolve the matter through dialogue.
“We hope to have a reasonable dialogue so that we can continue, in the future as well, to support our common sport heroes,” Solli added.
Haaland played a key role in Norway’s World Cup campaign, helping the country reach the quarter-finals in its first appearance at the tournament since 1998.
Norway’s run ended with a 2-1 defeat to England.
According to Verdens Gang, the dispute is scheduled to come before the Oslo District Court on October 9.
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