The woman who became the first to stand against men for a position on UEFA's ruling executive committee believes her move was viewed as a "rebellion" by the vast majority of Europe’s football federation presidents.
Norwegian federation president Lise Klaveness stood for one of the vacant positions at last year’s UEFA Congress in Lisbon but was not elected after receiving only 18 votes.
UEFA holds one position in reserve for a female representative on its executive committee and this week’s Congress in Paris is set to vote to amend Article 21 of the UEFA statutes to increase that to two in the future.
Klaveness did not want to run against Wales’ Laura McAllister for the reserved ExCo position last year because it would have meant only one of them having a chance of being elected. McAllister was not able to run against the men as Klaveness was, because she is not a federation president or vice-president.
However, Klaveness says when she campaigned for election via the conventional route, the initial impression she got from about "49 or 50" of the other UEFA association heads she spoke to was that she should not be standing against men.
"We really wanted to make some changes and we knew that no woman had ever run for election. I thought it could be a very good thing to try to change this, but it was not seen as that," she said at the Play The Game conference in Oslo.
"When you see people’s eyes and they see someone else than (they) are… I saw that in 50 or 49. In most of the conversations I had with presidents I saw (they viewed this as) a rebellion, a difficult person who just wanted to be difficult.
"Maybe it was a mistake (not) to run for the woman’s position. I don’t know that, but at least I know I was very anchored in the organisation I came from and it was a long way outside my comfort zone. So at least I offered people that.
"To me, the only way you can do anything when it comes to change, it’s of course to not think that people are evil. I don’t meet a lot of evil people in FIFA and UEFA, I meet very good people, nice people.
"But I think it’s a structure, a culture, a comfort, a cartel – maybe that’s not a good word – and you cannot change anything like this without passion."
