Norwegian national team football player Andreas Schjelderup was given a suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of sharing sexual material of two under-18 boys in a Danish court on Wednesday.
Schjelderup, 21, who played for Danish team FC Nordsjaelland last year, told the Copenhagen court he had received the 27-second video on the Snapchat social media app and had forwarded it to a group chat of four friends.
The winger, who has now moved to Portuguese club Benfica, pleaded guilty and told the court he had realised from the first few seconds that the people in the video were under 18.
“As I forwarded it to my friends, I quickly realised that it was illegal and rapidly deleted the video,” Schjelderup said.
In a statement on Instagram on November 8, Schjelderup apologised and said he wanted to “be open to all of you about a stupid mistake I did”.
Judge Mathias Eike gave Schjelderup a two-week suspended prison sentence, meaning he will only have to serve time in jail if found guilty of another crime during the next 12 months.
The prosecutor in the case had asked the court to sentence Schjelderup to at least 20 days in prison.
His lawyer Anders Nemeth told the court that the defence would take time to deliberate before deciding whether to appeal.
Norway on Sunday qualified for the 2026 World Cup after a 4-1 win away to Italy in their final qualifying match.
Schjelderup was an unused substitute for the match in Milan.
Schjelderup has won eight caps for his country after making his international debut against Kosovo in June 2024.
He featured in five of the national team’s eight World Cup qualifying matches as Norway dominated their group to qualify for their fourth World Cup, and their first since the 1998 tournament in France.
