Norway's new football association president Lise Klaveness wants to return the men's team to a major tournament while also building structures that give women an equal opportunity to achieve their potential.
Klaveness became the first woman to hold the top office of Norwegian football when the 40-year-old former player was elected president of the Norwegian Football Association (NFF) earlier this month.
"I didn't become president to work with equal opportunities— I became president to work for all of Norwegian football, and we haven't reached our goals for the men for over 20 years now," she told Reuters in an interview.
Norway's men have not qualified for the finals of a major tournament since Euro 2000, and though their women are ranked 12th in the world they also face a battle to keep up as other nations invest heavily in the women's game.
As both the first woman and the youngest president in the history of the NFF, Klaveness is promising evolution rather than revolution, but she is a woman in a hurry.
"It's always better to have evolution, it's more sustainable. You have to be positioned to have an evolution, or else you don't do anything. For me, it's definitely trying to escalate an evolution," Klaveness said.
Capped 73 times by her country, Klaveness's playing career as a midfielder and forward came at a time when the rewards in the women's game were meagre, but she has built herself up to become the most powerful woman in the domestic game.
'NOTHING TO GAIN'
As the NFF's first female technical director, she oversaw the burgeoning international careers of Borussia Dortmund's Erling Haaland and Arsenal's Martin Odegaard, who look like being cornerstones of the men's team for the coming decade.
Klaveness points to the structures that allow men to thrive in the game and take risks to further themselves, while women working in the same sport see little reward for taking the same risks.
"If you don't see any women coaches in the Bundesliga clubs or Premier League clubs, or even the lower championships clubs, you don't really see the prize, you have nothing to gain," she said.
"It's because you know they have to work weekends, afternoons and have kids without safety for salaries and nothing to go for, you know, it's impossible. So the pyramid for the professional part for women does not function.
"It functions as an activity and as a sport, and it's a theatre of dreams ... but as a professional pyramid, it doesn't really function for women yet."
The women's team will contest the European Championships in England in July, but the men have once again missed out on qualification for the World Cup, which kicks off in Qatar in November.
Klaveness says she will measure her success in terms of the trust she can generate, as well as things like tournament qualifications for the senior national teams.
"It's not just championships— it's also that football should be for all, which is the most important aim we have," she said.
