In March 2022, the football world shuddered.
A red-haired woman gave an unprecedented speech at the Fifa Congress, which made the ears of Fifa buffoons turn red.
During that six-minute period, among other things, he criticized the way in which the World Cup was awarded to Qatar and demanded actions from the International Football Association in favor of Qatar’s guest workers. Married to a woman Lise Klaveness announced that there is no room for managers who do not accept women’s matches or for match hosts who cannot guarantee the realization of the rights of sexual and gender minorities.
After his speech, he received a huge round of applause. However, not everyone liked the speech. Secretary General of the World Cup Hassan Al Thawadi scolded Klaveness immediately after the speech.
Secretary General of Honduras Jose Ernesto Mejia annoyed the Norwegian leader for his outspokenness and barked that the time and place were wrong.
But Klaveness has not come to please.
– It’s not about what I think. But I do think there is an atmosphere of fear in international football. We football managers are always under a bit of pressure to not just say something wrong. Because that something can cost, for example, the European Championships, Klaveness says now, in the warm office of the Football Association.
Klaveness, the president of the Norwegian Football Association, is a guest speaker of the Norwegian Football Association at the Helmareide celebration seminar.
At the very beginning, of course, you have to ask the Norwegian leader’s opinion about Finland.
The Norwegian Football Association has been stricter in its Qatar exits than its other Nordic partners, but what does Klaveness think of the Finnish Football Association’s actions regarding Qatar?
– We Nordic countries have cooperated a lot with Qatar, we were one group. We share the same Nordic values and goals. We Norwegians have been a bit more active and outspoken. But personally, I think it’s important to have different approaches and roles to these things, Klaveness answers.
– This is a bigger issue than Qatar. It’s about where international football is going.
Klaveness is used to returning to events in Qatar a little over a year ago.
After all, the speech made him famous all over the world overnight. Requests for interviews poured in from both South America and Africa.
Everyone wanted to know more about that brave Norwegian woman, who stood out from the male-dominated crowd not only because of her looks but also because of her opinions.
Therefore, the arrival of Klaveness in Finland is not a foregone conclusion.
The schedule of the president of the Norwegian Football Association is strict. Klaveness’s plane has landed at Helsinki-Vantaa airport a little after eleven, and five hours later he is sitting on the plane again.
In the meantime, he has had time to get to know the premises of the Finnish Football Federation, have a lunch meeting in the famous “sauna” meeting room of the Finnish Football Federation, the general secretary Marco Casagrande and development manager Heidi Pihlaja with, gives interviews to the Finnish media and gives a speech at the Helmareite celebration seminar.
This is what it’s like, the busy day of a football manager.
Klaveness is in many ways an exceptional football manager. He reminds that he became chairman from the position of technical director.
– I had no political experience at all.
Klaveness is also not afraid to speak openly about difficult topics – not even when they concern himself.
– I know that female leaders shouldn’t talk about these things, Klaveness says in her seminar speech.
– But it has to be worth it. It’s hard to travel 200 days a year and be a good mom at home. Sometimes I am, sometimes I really don’t. But I try.
He is not afraid to talk about his weaknesses or joke about himself.
– I am often asked what I felt when giving the speech, what I remember about it. But do you know what stuck out the most? It was the first trip since I had decided to stop feeding the baby. The overriding feeling was the fear of milk leaking from my breasts.
The audience bursts into laughter, many times during the speech.
Klaveness is a skilled speaker. He has a knack for making his audience not only laugh, but also think.
But it wasn’t far from Qatar’s famous speech not being delivered, or at least becoming very different.
Fifa suggested that Klaveness give his speech from his seat instead of the stage.
– At first I thought that maybe I could just sit, because the journey to the stage is long, says Klaveness.
Then he came to another eve.
However, speaking in front of a large audience was nerve-wracking.
– But I really had motivation. Both as a player and as a technical director, I knew how Qatar’s hosting of the competition was a detriment to the sport. If you have to do something with big risks, you have to be really motivated. And I was.
Before his speech, he received a text message from an unknown number.
“Dear Lise Klaveness, now you have to make use of everything you have learned in life. Stay strong.”
Klaveness has remained.
The first woman
Just a couple of weeks before her famous speech, Lise Klaveness had been elected president of the Norwegian Football Association – the first woman, even though the association had already existed for 120 years.
But Klaveness is used to being first. She was the first woman as the technical director responsible for the men’s and women’s national teams and the first expert to comment on the men’s Premier League and World Cup finals on television.
Television work was followed by a huge robbery.
– I received a lot of harassment and feedback about my appearance. It was a really strange experience. But after a while I decided I was strong enough to take it, Klaveness begins.
– I decided that I was only looking for opportunities, not obstacles. But of course I don’t feel like that every day. Sometimes I’m full of this. I miss more female colleagues. But the situation is slowly changing.
One thing that Klaveness keeps coming back to is motivation.
– I am motivated by the idea that the girls can follow in my footsteps as a TV commentator and technical director and chairman.
Klaveness can be called a pioneer with a clear conscience, but the Norwegian leader does not want to take all the credit for himself.
And in reality, she is not the first leading Norwegian woman in the world of football: Ellen Wille was the first Norwegian woman on the board of the football association, Karen Espelund served as secretary general of the Norwegian Football Association and was the first woman to join the UEFA executive board in 2012–2016. Also Espelund demanded equality acts from the umbrella organizations. (you switch to another service)
The most famous example from the field is the winner of the first Ballon d’OR awarded to women in history Ada Hegerberg, which boycotted the Norwegian national team for years. According to Hegerberg, it was about respect and how the association treated female players unequally.
Klaveness reminds us of the important work of his predecessors. He also hugs during his speech at the seminar Elisabeth Rehn and the first captain of the Finnish women’s national football team Marketta Hartikka.
– I want to tell all girls, women and mothers that it is important for girls to have pioneers. That they can say I want to be the head coach of the men’s national team. That we don’t create dreams just for our boys.
Accustomed to difficult situations
That’s why it’s hard to believe that Klaveness’ own path to becoming a soccer player started with pleasing his father. He wanted very much to make his football-loving father proud.
As a little girl, Klaveness was not particularly skilled, so she spent countless hours playing soccer, even on her school trips.
The ball even accompanied Klaveness to the church for confirmation, and Klaveness slept with his ball.
Little by little, the training paid off, and Klaveness developed into a national team player.
Of course, he has worked hard for his dreams even after that. In addition to playing football, he studied law and worked both at the Oslo District Court and at the Norwegian Central Bank.
The lawyer’s work has also been helpful in the duties of the chairman of the football association.
– Also in my previous work, I tried to solve problems. I have experience delivering messages that don’t make me perhaps the most popular person in the room. I can defend the person who committed the crime, because it is important that he is also defended, even though it can be really hard for the victim and his loved ones.
Klaveness is a pioneer in many matters, but as the first woman outside the quota, she has not yet made it to the UEFA board.
Klaveness decided not to challenge for the one-woman earmarked seat, which was applied for by Wales Laura McAllister.
Instead, she challenged ten men for the seven remaining spots, the first woman ever.
– The applicant for the position earmarked for a woman does not have to be the chairman, but applicants for other positions must. I didn’t want to take that woman’s place because she is not the chairman. I can continue my work as chairman.
Klaveness received 18 votes out of 55 possible. He was tenth out of eleven possible in the vote.
Even in the future, only one of the twenty members will be a woman.
The current system doesn’t get much praise from Klaveness.
– The current system works so that there is at least one woman involved, but in practice it means that there is no more than one woman involved. The system keeps the number of women low. It does not encourage women to apply. You can already see it by looking at history. Zero women. No one has even tried!
The interview time is running out.
So it’s time for one more question.
What Klaveness has had to answer countless times: how does it feel to be a female manager in a male-dominated football world?
– I get asked what it’s like to work in a man’s world, but I don’t feel like that. I feel like I work in my own world. Football has always been part of my life.