A new woman on the UEFA Executive Committee? Former Norwegian international Lise Klaveness, 41, wants one. And she intends to set an example by joining the European football body’s decision-making body. The Scandinavian lawyer, currently president of the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF), is a candidate for the ComEx, where she hopes to see more women take on responsibility, not just as representatives of women’s football. “I’m the first female president to ever run for an ExCo election, which is pretty critical when you consider that it’s the biggest sport for girls and women in the world, so we need a board that reflects that” she told Reuters in an interview. A member of Norway’s fourth-placed team at the 2007 World Cup in China, Lise Klaveness was a 73-time international before becoming technical director and then last year president of the NFF. “Men’s football is just as close to my heart as women’s football“, she said. “I find that technical competence has to be represented in the boardrooms, alongside business skills and entertainment skills and investment skills, but the technical aspect needs to be very well-represented, and I’m ready to do that. I will be ready to do a good job in the ExCo because I have good insight to the game — I’ve spent my life in football, both on the women’s and the men’s side. I was the first female to ever commentate on the men’s game in Norway, on the World Cup and Premier League, and then the first technical director to lead the men’s national team, and now the first female president.” Lise Klaveness gave a fiery speech last year at the FIFA Congress in Doha (pictured above), calling on delegates to address the situation of migrant workers and LGBT people ahead of the World Cup in Qatar. Elections to the UEFA Executive Committee will take place at the UEFA Congress in early April 2023.
