Former United States head coach Jill Ellis is leaving her function as president to turn out to be chief soccer officer at .
Ellis, 58, has been Wave’s president because the membership joined the (NWSL) in 2021.
Earlier than that, she had received two World Cups with the USWNT throughout her five-year stint as head coach between 2014 and 2019. Ellis beforehand held quite a lot of teaching roles within the U.S. youth set-up.
“I’m honoured to affix FIFA on this pioneering function and to contribute to the expansion of soccer from a world perspective,” Ellis mentioned. “FIFA has a novel capacity, by means of soccer, to unite communities and to drive the sport’s improvement worldwide.
“Having skilled soccer, from grassroots programmes as much as senior national-team degree, I’ve seen first-hand its transformative energy.”
As a part of her new function, FIFA says Ellis will work alongside former supervisor Arsene Wenger, who has been the group’s chief of worldwide soccer improvement since 2019.
Ellis’ function at FIFA is a newly-created place, which FIFA says is liable for serving to to drive “the event and implementation of FIFA’s international soccer technique”.
“Jill’s expertise, enthusiasm and excellent achievements make her the proper selection for this function,” FIFA Secretary Normal Mattias Grafstrom added. “She has been a real inspiration for a lot of, and I look ahead to seeing the impression of her work proceed to encourage many extra all over the world.
“FIFA may be very proud to have Jill and Arsene, two of the good soccer leaders and thinkers, to assist us make our imaginative and prescient for soccer a actuality. Her appointment demonstrates FIFA’s dedication to the way forward for the sport and to creating extra alternatives for the following technology.”
Earlier this 12 months, after a former worker alleged that the group “perpetuated discrimination towards girls and demonstrated an entire disregard for (workers’) long-term psychological well being” by a former worker. Wave strongly denied the allegations, which Ellis referred to as “false”.
Since then, 5 former Wave workers have filed a lawsuit towards the membership and NWSL — although Ellis is just not named as a defendant — over a number of claims of discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination and sexual harassment.
San Diego Wave and NWSL face discrimination lawsuit filed by 5 former membership workers
The making of Jill Ellis: How the U.S. girls’s nationwide group coach began her life over in soccer
This text initially appeared in .
US Girls’s nationwide group, San Diego Wave, Worldwide Soccer, UK Girls’s Soccer
2024 The Athletic Media Firm