SYDNEY: The introduction of a female seat on FIFA’s executive committee is a significant step in gender inequality being eradicated from the game and not a token position, Australian candidate Moya Dodd has said.
A female seat on the executive committee was first proposed by FIFA President Sepp Blatter in 2011 before being adopted a year later with the first election due to take place this month.
Dodd, a former player, commentator and current lawyer, is up for the role but faces competition.
Also in the running are New Zealand’s Paula Kearns, Sonia Bien-Aime of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Lydia Nsekera, the President of the Burundi Football Association, who has been the co-opted member of FIFA ExCo since 2012.
The successful candidate will be decided by a vote at the FIFA Congress in Mauritius on May 31 and Dodd believes whoever wins the seat on the all-powerful board, which rules on the sport’s significant issues, must seize the opportunity.
“For me personally it would be a very significant step. I hope that whoever takes the seat makes a real tangible contribution and I suppose exceeds expectation as to what she can contribute,” Dodd said.
“There are some absolutely outstanding women in football globally, some aspiring, very competent women and it would be great to see that contribution happening in the FIFA ExCo, the top table of world football.”
FIFA has faced accusations of sexism in the past. In 2004, Blatter drew outrage when he suggested women footballers should wear tighter shorts. In March, anti-corruption expert and member of FIFA’s reform committee Alexandra Wrage accused the world governing body of ‘blatant sexism’ after she said an unnamed FIFA official told her that it was not acceptable for a woman to hold such a role in the organisation. She resigned in April. Dodd said that women had long faced struggles at all levels in the game but that the newly-created role was not an attempt by FIFA to plaster over past sexism accusations.
Blatter was in Kuala Lumpur to see Dodd elected unopposed to the role of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) vice president last Thursday. REUTERS
