Two women led the resistance to Infantino’s World Cup sell-off. That matters

The president, Aleksander Ceferin, speaks first. That’s the way in a crisis.

Then the natural order: the treasurer and vice president, Sandor Csanyi; English Football Association CEO Mark Bullingham. Male European football executives lined up on the Zoom screen, queueing up to save our world. 

But then this emergency meeting of UEFA, European football’s governing body, convened in response to FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell off stakes in its major competitions, takes a twist.

Laura McAllister, another vice president and one of two women on the governing body’s 21-member executive committee, takes the microphone. She demands real action: a full boycott of FIFA competitions. 

Maybe this means little to you — the fact that on an emergency call of 150 individuals actively wrestling with what they consider to be an existential threat to football’s future, it is a woman who issues the call to arms.

Maybe this seems perfectly normal. Maybe McAllister’s demand for a full-fledged boycott of football’s 122-year-old global governing body was always likely to accrue support at such a moment.

And maybe some think the fact that it is Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) president Lise Klaveness — the only other woman, along with McAllister, sitting on UEFA’s executive committee — who lays out the pathway to higher governance standards if a leadership change at FIFA is required is also a coincidence. A quirk.

But let’s be honest, that kind of thinking is ridiculous.

There is an irony in two women leading the resistance to the great World Cup sell-off, given how football has historically and systemically kept females at arm’s length — on the pitch, on the touchlines, in the boardrooms, in its executive. 

Yet according to multiple sources, kept anonymous to protect relationships, familiar with Thursday’s emergency meeting, no one besides Ceferin was more vocal about the need for seismic action than McAllister and Klaveness. 

That matters. 

Of the lessons to be gleaned from FIFA’s proposals and the subsequent standoff with federations, one that will not seize headlines is the ever-increasing importance of having women in decision-making positions, women specifically with backgrounds in football. 

McAllister and Klaveness are not merely powerful executives in their own right. They are respected former internationals (with Wales and Norway) who know the sport intimately. That playing pedigree has helped as they have garnered respect and authority in football governance and leadership during their time at UEFA, particularly around the principles and ethics that are supposed to underpin the game. 

McAllister and Klaveness represented their countries at times when their nations hardly represented them. McAllister was one of three women to lobby the Welsh FA to formally recognise the women’s national team in 1992.

Klaveness’ playing career spanned 14 years, earning her 73 caps and a trip to the Euro 2005 final. McAllister pursued academia and governance after her playing career, while Klaveness studied law, pursuits that were driven by both passion and necessity, as football beyond playing was not an available path. 

Eventually, however, both found their way back to the sport. 

By March 2022, Klaveness was elected as NFF president, becoming the first woman to lead it in its 120-year history. McAllister was the first Welsh person to win a seat on UEFA’s executive committee in 2023, taking the one female-designated space of the 21-member body. Two years later, McAllister had managed to expand UEFA’s number of female-designated seats on its executive committee to two. Klaveness took it. 

All of which reads easily, a kind of Wikipedia timeline of achievements conveniently lacking the challenges that accompanied being not only women existing in a male-dominated world but attempting to reshape and reconfigure it from the inside.

According to multiple sources, many within UEFA and FIFA initially found Klaveness’ confrontational style challenging, which might help explain why, when she ran for a non-female designated seat on UEFA’s executive committee in 2023, she lost.

Klaveness has publicly challenged the moral issues presented by World Cup hosts Qatar (2022), the United States (2026, alongside Mexico and Canada) and Saudi Arabia (2034). She called for an investigation into Israel — whom Norway were drawn against in World Cup qualification — stating that the NFF could not remain indifferent to the civilian casualties in Gaza during the recent conflict there. In April 2026, she also called for the abolition of the FIFA Peace Prize that Infantino had awarded to President Donald Trump.  

McAllister, too, has not shied away from voicing the uncomfortable out loud, whether that is standing up for LGBTQ+ rights in Qatar, fighting for more women representatives throughout UEFA, or calling out corrosive ethics within the game. 

Those appeals have inevitably attracted enemies. But over the past two years, as football has grappled with endless moral quandaries, McAllister and Klaveness have come to be recognised as ethical compasses. In the aftermath of UEFA’s announced boycott, it was notable that Klaveness and McAllister were the main figures speaking to media, openly criticising FIFA for “economic blackmail”.  

In one sense, McAllister and Klaveness had everything and simultaneously absolutely nothing to lose. The luxury of never having been invited into the old boys’ club is that you are not compelled to act according to its unspoken statutes, its silent agreements, its quiet politics. 

So at a moment when football sat gripped in the vice of one man’s greed, when many inside UEFA and FIFA did not know who was privy to the masterplan, who else to trust but those who have always walked a conspicuous line? 

What this means for the future of women in football governance remains to be seen. When The Athletic floated the idea that one of Klaveness or McAllister might be put forward for a higher leadership position, the response, from a source close to both women, was candid: “Football isn’t ready for that.” But many within UEFA and FIFA hope this latest episode demonstrates once more the critical value of having competent women in decision-making positions within football’s most powerful corridors.

There’s an irony that, six months ago, Infantino asked McAllister during a dinner at UEFA’s congress in Brussels what she might say on the stage he would take to the following day if she had the chance. The dearth of women in significant positions in football, she said, seemed a decent place to start. 

“Right?” Infantino told his (overwhelmingly male) audience the following day. “Of course, we need more women in important positions in football.”

It was a remarkable show of nerve from football’s most powerful man, bewailing the very system he has overseen. 

Of the 37 places on FIFA’s council — the organisation’s main decision-making body — eight are held by women. Six of those are courtesy of a statutory requirement mandating a minimum of one female representative from each of the six continental confederations, reforms announced at FIFA’s congress in February 2016 in a bid to increase the number of women in top football positions. FIFA did not elect a woman to its council until 2013, when Burundi’s Lydia Nsekera broke 109 years of fossilised order. 

While 83 per cent of football associations now have at least one woman on their executive committee, an increase from 64 per cent in 2019, only 10 of FIFA’s 211 member associations are led by female presidents. 

Of UEFA’s 21-member executive committee, only two spaces are designated for women. No non-woman designated spot has been occupied by a woman. 

McAllister and Klaveness will be among the first to say that meaningful change is a slow burn, an act of patience and grit. But sometimes it is also a matter of bravely sticking your head above the parapet. Out of necessity. Out of duty. Out of the familiar knowledge — shared with many women in football who have come before them — that this is the right thing to do, not the easy thing to do. 

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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