Top 10 Most Influential Women in Football

Ladies are taking over! Whether you’re a devoted football fan or not, you might’ve already heard a few names from this list. 

10. Helena Costa

The 14th place (36 matches: 10 wins, 15 draws, 11 losses) together with the 20th place in the second French football division pushed the management of the Clermont club to take measures that might seem radical at first. On May 7, they announced the appointment of 36-year-old Helena Costa as the team’s head coach. Having succeeded in coaching women, Costa was very successful in doing so for a male team as well. She proved to be an extremely effective coach and showed that a woman is more than capable of being successful at such a job. 

9. Bibiana Steinhaus

A piece of football wisdom says, “A good referee must be invisible.” In the case of 35-year-old Bibiana Steinhaus, getting lost on the field is difficult: a gorgeous blonde can’t make a step without male attention when she’s at work. Don’t let the cute looks fool you. Steinhaus is the only female referee in the professional football system of Germany, and that has to mean something. And she’s incredibly good at it. 

8. Delia Smith

She’s the owner of Norwich City. Delia has been the idol for housewives for almost 40 years. She often takes the bosses of the football league to dine at her restaurant, and they seem to enjoy it a lot. She’s a very nice woman capable of managing both a premium-class restaurant and a football team. 

7. Heather Rabbats

She’s the first woman to become a part of the board of the Football Association. Rabbats began her career in the London district committee. In 2006, she received a managerial position at Millwall and later got to the Football Association where she became a non-executive director and the first woman to occupy a high position in this organization. Today, Rabbats carefully and consistently criticizes the association itself. 

6. Amy Fearn

She began her referee career at the age of 16 and gradually rose to the position of the fourth referee in the matches of the fourth division. In 2010, she replaced the main referee that was injured 20 minutes before the end of the match, becoming the first woman referee in the history of professional football in England. Now, she’s the reserve referee of the top matches of the women’s league as well as matches between female teams. 

5. Gabby Logan

15 years of work made Logan the most recognizable woman in football media: she appeared on the screens before the Premier League and Champions League matches, took post-match interviews with all of the England coaches, and reached her peak of fame after switching to BBC and working on Match of the Day. 

4. Margaret Byrne

At Sunderland, she’s in charge of finances, negotiating transfers between the coach and the owner and making sure the club is doing good. It was Byrne who thought of inviting Rihanna for the concert in summer at the Stadium of Light where Sunderland earned a lot of money. 

3. Jacqui Oatley

A presenter and commentator, Oatley became the first woman to appear on BBC’s Match of the Day. In addition, Jackie herself played football and also passed the coaching license exam, so she quickly left behind most of the male experts, for whom the threshold for entering the profession was much lower. Now, Oatley can be heard everywhere: on BBC, ITV, and ESPN; on television and radio; as a commentator and presenter; in football, tennis, golf, and rugby. 

2. Eva Carneiro

She’s the one who patches up Chelsea’s players. Since Andre Villas-Boas appointed Eva Carneiro as a physiotherapist of the first team, sexual objectification was unavoidable. Fortunately, Carneiro learned how to use her popularity to explain really important things. She often speaks at conferences on sports medicine, explaining that getting into a male football world is quite real (before Chelsea, Eva worked for the British Olympic Committee and did practice at West Ham). 

1. Karren Brady

She’s the vice president of West Ham and the “First Lady of Football.” In 1993, Brady came to work at Birmingham; in 95, she married football player Paul Peskisido; in 2010, she became the vice president of West Ham that was bought by her former employers. In Birmingham, Brady was in charge of finances, and the club first went into self-sufficiency. The main reason Brady is considered the most influential woman in football is her political ability; roughly speaking, the ability to negotiate.   Article is provided by foreign dating sites.