Nine board members will be elected, and Klaveness is expected to be one of them. He made the decision to step down after speaking for three hours with UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin last week.

– I know it will be difficult. Presidents choose each other. Most of them have been sitting longer than me and know each other. There are bigger countries, and only one woman was elected there before, Klaveness summarized her objection NRK.

– After much discussion with the board and with myself, we agreed that I should make myself available. We have to lean back and try to come to the table, even though it will be difficult.

Klaveness received a lot of attention around the world with his speech at the FIFA congress in March last year, when he criticized the international football federation and World Cup hosts Qatar.

Not sure about support

On Thursday last week he was in Slovenia to meet Ceferin. There they talked, among other things, about his possible candidacy.

– After all, he chairs this council, has great support in Europe and is about to be re-elected. “It’s important for me to talk to him before I come out and say that I’m running for election,” he told the state channel.

He said it was a good conversation, but he wasn’t clear on whether or not he supported his candidacy. Some support from Ceferin may be needed to reach election.

During the congress, eight councilors will be elected for four years, one for two.

There is a requirement for at least one woman on board. Today, France’s Florence Hardouin is the only woman, but she was suspended last week by the French football federation after a conflict with the country’s soccer president. That same day he suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital.

Not represented

The UEFA Council already has two Nordic members. They are Karl-Erik Nilsson from Sweden and Jesper Møller from Denmark. The latter will be voted on in April.

– We are five football presidents in the Nordics, three men and two women. Two of them sit on the UEFA board, and the Finnish president is running for election to FIFA. The last two are women, and we are the ones who are not represented, said Klaveness.

Previously, Per Ravn Omdal sat on the UEFA board for many years, from 1992 to 2009. The last Norwegian representative on the UEFA board was Karen Espelund, who served as chair of the women’s committee. He sat on UEFA’s board from 2011 to 2016, when he was replaced by Hardouin.