As the rain whips around Oslo’s government quarter, Lise Klaveness is shielding herself from the wind, trying to work out tactics. “Of course we cannot probably do everything alone, but we have a voice, we have the right to speak, we have the right to suggest, so let’s see,” she says. “We will at least try to be a spearhead.”
The president of the Norwegian Football Federation wants to re-engage Fifa, and other governing bodies, on the topic of remedy. A slightly arcane aspect of human rights policy in normal times, the importance of remedy became very clear in the aftermath of the World Cup in Qatar, when the families of those injured or killed in the work that led up to the tournament were left without financial compensation after Fifa chose to direct a legacy fund elsewhere.
At Klaveness’s prompting, Fifa conducted a review into the process. The report ultimately found the organisation did have a responsibility to provide remedy, but Fifa chose not to redirect the money. Klaveness wants to focus minds on the topic once again and make sure new practices are in place for Euro 2028, co-hosted by England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, as well as the World Cup of 2034 in Saudi Arabia where labour movement sources suggest there is currently little to no external scrutiny on worker’s conditions.
She is doing so at a delicate juncture. While Gianni Infantino has assured those listening that the “vast, vast majority” of Fifa’s electorate will back his re-election as president next year, many within the game regard this as an opportunity for change. Klaveness is one of them, having been a thorn in Infantino’s side since she first raised the topic of remedy on the floor of the Fifa congress in 2022 and having called for him to resign this summer after the scandals of the Balogun red card and the Fifa Forward Enterprise fiasco.
The 45-year-old Klaveness has been touted as a possible candidate in the Fifa presidential election, earning a perhaps less than desirable endorsement from Sepp Blatter. The disgraced former president said Klaveness “deserved the utmost respect” and that “the time has come for a woman to take over the leadership”. Klaveness responded by recalling that Blatter “wanted us to play with shorter shorts”. Her position on a run for president today is to almost, if not entirely, rule it out.
“My name has come up a few times and I take it as a sign that [people are concerned] about governance because we have been very outspoken about governance,” she says. “We’ve had a role internationally that is not the most efficient way to get votes. I think we’ve been very outspoken so this time around I don’t think that would be a possibility for me and it’s not been a real subject for me either.”
Not quite a no, then, but whether she runs or not Klaveness is a consistent champion for reform. She believes there are other candidates out there who could challenge Infantino and deliver change. She says it is crucial that any such individual is persuaded to stand before the deadline for nominations on 18 November. “It’s really important to have a candidate and one who can win,” she says. “We will welcome any candidate, but just putting up somebody who will lose is …” She shrugs. “I think it’s important to now discuss who can have a platform to win.
“There has been distrust, and not just in Europe, many other places than Europe,” she says of the challenge to Infantino. “Of course, it’s become very political, that’s why I refer to it as the Game of Thrones. Candidates need to have a base in different confederations. We don’t know how challenged Infantino can be until there’s a counter-candidate like that. But certainly there are people that can challenge him.”
On this day at least Klaveness is reluctant to make too many pugnacious remarks about Infantino or Fifa. “People ask me all the time about Infantino, but it’s not about him,” she says. “For me it’s about the governance going forward. He was elected on a platform of reform, which we really believed in, but it was not really implemented and that disappointed us.”
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Klaveness says she wants any reforms around remedy to apply to all organisers and competitions. She talks about building alliances to back proposals that would ensure funds are set aside for remedy before a tournament takes place and that mechanisms are established for how any money should be distributed. She wants to submit such proposals at the next Fifa congress. “It should also be in Uefa and other places but let’s start with Fifa, let’s start at the top, and now that governance is on everybody’s lips let’s make this part of the suggestions we will make to the congress, together or alone.”
A collaborative approach to achieving solutions, rather than deals struck behind closed doors, is Klaveness’s preferred way and on Tuesday the former midfielder, with 73 Norway caps, made her case on remedy to a gathering of politicians commemorating the 50th anniversary of the OECD’s guidelines for ‘responsible business conduct’. No longer the lone voice speaking out on the conference floor, Klaveness has allies and a growing number of people who – at least in private – would claim to share her values. That she also presides over two successful national sides doesn’t hurt.
Norway’s women’ face a playoff against Wales to qualify for next year’s World Cup. The men, meanwhile, won hearts and matches in the US this year. Klaveness recalls with some bemusement the World Cup experience. “I was on the road for seven weeks with 65 men,” she says. “I also saw Erling Haaland with a dead raccoon. Football is a lot of things, a sport, a competition, a cultural phenomenon. It’s also a social tool, but if we want the game to be for everyone there is going to be conflict.” It won’t be too long before that conflict resumes.
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