At the highest levels of football governance, Moya Dodd found integrity and gender issues loomed large. She was one of only 3 of 27 FIFA Executive Committee members who declined a $25,000 gift watch at the 2014 World Cup.
Moya Dodd is an immeasurably accomplished human being.
She vice-captained the Matildas and is now a lawyer and repaying the sport – especially but not only for women – in the best way she knows, as an administrator of the world game.
In 2016 she was also named the most influential woman in Australia by the Australian Financial Review, a title not to be understated.
Then, in 2018 Moya Dodd was recognized as the 7th most powerful woman in international sport (outside the US) by Forbes magazine.
In 2020, Moya was listed in the Women’s International Champions Cup’s global “Best XI” for advancing women’s soccer. This is impossibly esteemed recognition.
At just 14, she began her senior career with Port Adelaide in 1979. Five years later, SA state selection awaited her. Taking a huge leap from there, by virtue of her developed skill level, she took part in FIFA’s first ever women’s tournament in 1988, the Invitational Tournament in China. This was the enormous predecessor to the first FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Once again, fame followed as she was named in the 1990s Matildas’ Team of the Decade’.
Twenty-five years after the 1988 tournament, she joined the governing body of FIFA – among the most privileged and male-dominated institutions in the world – as one of the first women in its 108-year history.
At the highest levels of football governance, Moya found integrity and gender issues loomed large. She was one of only 3 of 27 FIFA Executive Committee members who declined a $25,000 gift watch at the 2014 World Cup.
A year later, she found herself in a luxury Zurich hotel as her colleagues were arrested in a dawn raid.
As the ‘FIFAGate’ scandals unfolded, Moya led the #womeninFIFA reform movement, becoming ‘the driving force in the recent push for women within FIFA’ (New York Times) and ‘one of the most credible and outspoken voices for change within the organization’ (Vice Sports).
She continues to be a vocal advocate for equality and inclusion, serving on the successful Australia’s bid committee for the Women’s World Cup, and Co-Chairing international NGO Common Goal (with Juan Mata).
Moya’s journey from the national team to the boardroom, combined with over 20 years in law and business, have given her priceless stories and unique insights into complex issues of equality, integrity and change.
Globally, she has successfully campaigned to give hundreds of millions of girls access to the game with the overturning of the hijab ban and campaigned to have women received at the FIFA Executive Committee for the first time.
Moya Dodd has sought to have women’s football prioritised at all levels. The huge success of the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia – co-hosted by Australia and NZ – demonstrated once again to FIFA the appeal of the game to international audiences.
Moya Dodd was inducted into Football Federation of Australia Hall of Fame in 2022 and the Football SA Hall of Fame in 2019.
Most recently, she serves as Board Secretary to the Women's Leagues Forum, a group formed under the World Leagues Association to convene the leading professional women’s football leagues globally.
