Mamdani given signed Ødegaard Arsenal shirt by Norway's PM

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani has a new Arsenal shirt, and it came from the prime minister of Norway. Jonas Gahr Støre handed him a home shirt with Martin Ødegaard’s name and number 8 on the back, signed by the Arsenal captain with a personal message, during a school visit in Manhattan on 22 September. Støre is in the city for the UN General Assembly.

What happened at the school

The two met pupils aged five to seven at PS59 Beekman Hill International to try out the restrictive AI tools New York has brought into its schools. The shirt came out in the school library. VG reports that Støre arranged it himself, texting Ødegaard to ask for a signed shirt because he knew the mayor was an Arsenal supporter.

“My son Vetle told me that Mamdani is an Arsenal fan, just like him. So I reached out to Martin Ødegaard. He’s a great guy, and he signed an Ødegaard shirt and wrote a personal message to Zohran. He was really touched by it and said he was going to have it framed and put it up,” Støre told NRK.

Mamdani gave a shirt back. In the photograph Støre holds a black and white striped New York City shirt with a pigeon on the chest.

The shirt in the photo

It is the red Arsenal home shirt with white sleeves, ØDEGAARD across the shoulders and a large white 8, with the Premier League badge on the sleeve. The message is written across the number, addressed to Zohran, with the signature underneath. The photo does not show which season the shirt is from, so we do not say. The current Arsenal home shirt in the archive carries the same red body and white sleeves, and takes a name and number at no extra cost.

Why the mayor supports Arsenal

Mamdani was born in Kampala and came to Arsenal as a boy through an uncle, who bought him fridge magnets of Sol Campbell and Thierry Henry from the Invincibles side. He has said the club drew him because Arsène Wenger’s team was one of the first big European sides with several African players, among them Lauren, Kolo Touré, Nwankwo Kanu, Emmanuel Eboué and Alex Song. He has also admitted he first thought Wenger had been named after the club, and later wondered whether it was the other way round. His scar is the 2006 Champions League final, which he reached home from school to find Jens Lehmann already sent off.

Old tweets resurfaced when he won the mayoral election in November: praise for Robin van Persie in 2011, Arsenal top of the table in November 2013, a dig at Tottenham. He says he no longer has time for full matches and keeps up through the Arsecast podcast. In March, during talks with FIFA president Gianni Infantino at City Hall about World Cup ticket prices, he was put on a FaceTime call with Wenger. In May he went to Eid al-Adha prayers in the Bronx in a custom kurta cut from the design of the 2025-26 Arsenal away shirt, days after Arsenal won the Premier League for the first time in 22 years, and before they went on to reach the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain.

Ødegaard, Norway and a text message

Ødegaard is the captain of both Arsenal and Norway, which is why a Norwegian prime minister could get a shirt signed with one text. Støre’s son is an Arsenal fan too, and the idea started with him. Arsenal are the reigning Premier League champions, so the gift landed in a good year.

The shirts in the archive

The current Arsenal home shirt and the 2025-26 away shirt the kurta was based on are both in the archive, linked above, and ØDEGAARD 8 is a printing choice on either. For the Norway side of the story there is the Norway home shirt, and everything he has worn for club and country sits on the Martin Ødegaard page linked at the top.