Interview: The Greek high flyer slaying dinosaurs in football’s boardrooms

Lina Souloukou is telling a story about a recent confrontation in the boardroom of the Greek Super League between a male club owner and the female vice president of, what she terms, a “medium sized historic club.”

The dispute arose about an agenda item, the sort of dull procedural flashpoint that happens everywhere. But it quickly escalated, with the increasingly angry club owner losing his temper and resorting to a crude sexist barb.

“What are you doing here anyway?” he eventually demanded. “You should be in the kitchen making moussaka for your kids.”

“I mean, this guy is also the mayor of one of the biggest cities in Greece, and this is the average mentality!” says an incredulous Souloukou.

She seems aghast, and so she should be. Because for four years until this summer, Souloukou was arguably the most powerful football executive in Greece, and one of the most high ranking women in the European game.

The General Manager – effectively its CEO – of Olympiakos, the country’s most successful football club, from 2018, Souloukou oversaw a return of fortunes after a brief fallow period at the Athens giants.

“In four years we won three titles in a row, played two Champions League campaigns and at the same time we managed to sell and develop players for the UK,” she says. “Overall, it was really an incredible experience.”
 
Surely that record might have changed some attitudes among the dinosaurs roaming the hinterland of Greek football? Certainly it should have done.

Rapid ascent

A former Olympic volleyball player and the daughter of a goalkeeper and football coach, Souloukou trained as a lawyer in Spain and worked as a freelance general counsel where her talent was spotted by the Olympiakos (and also now Nottingham Forest) owner Evangelos Marinakis. She rose through the club ranks and was appointed Head of Legal Affairs in 2016 and General Manager – effectively CEO – two years later at the age of just 34.
 

“In the beginning it was challenging,” she says.  “It's difficult to convince football people to trust a female executive. But we had a really diverse environment. Portuguese coach, French sporting director of colour, three women directors. So I think that this was probably partially the key of our success.

“I was lucky enough to be backed up by the owners. And they really entrusted me in this role and supported all the structural changes that we did throughout these four years. Internally, I didn't feel any kind of opposition.

“How this was perceived outside I don't know. But in the course of the four years, I think that everybody got on, and believed that a female executive can be equally successful.”

Old habits

That might have been the case within the Karaiskakis Stadium, but elsewhere – as she told me – old habits die hard. Since leaving the Piraeus club in June she has refocused her efforts on changing outmoded attitudes in her capacity as a European Club Association (ECA) board member, which she serves as its diversity representative. 
 
“Football is a very conservative industry and you can see that even at the ECA. You look around and what you mostly see is white male executive, CEOs, presidents,” she says.

“I truly believe that female leadership in this sport can really bring and make some difference.”

She suggests that female leaders are more reflective and better able to ask for help than their male counterparts.

“Managing all these elite athletes, coaches, directors on the football side with huge egos it's easier I think when you have comfort to say ‘There are many things that I don't know, Many things that could be done better,’” she acknowledges.

ECA role

She says that her ECA mandate, which began in late-2019 and has a year to go, has been impacted by the pandemic and the Super League fiasco. But in the comparative calm of 2022 efforts have been stepped up. She speaks of a twofold approach, one to reshape the face of the ECA – itself a comparatively small but well-funded organisation – and wider training programmes, aimed at its 260 member clubs.  On top of this is dialogue with UEFA and other partners. “We are trying to establish standards within Europe, but this is really just starting.”

Some of what they do seems straightforward but impactful. For instance, the ECA invites a second female delegate from each club to all its courses and educational programmes. This immediately gives female executives opportunities and face time in football’s corridors of power. However, this does not – it seems – apply to ECA’s General Assembly, where we meet on the sidelines (Just 17 female names appear on the 200 plus strong delegate list, with only seven from 130 clubs in attendance). She is the first to acknowledge this apparent shortcoming.

“ECA is from Finland to Cyprus and from Ireland to Baku. So the cultural differences are huge,” she says. “We are trying to give the pace, but then it is also how the clubs will react.”

Mentorship

Souloukou was something of a prodigy, having a high-powered role in football by her mid-thirties. Would having a female role mentor or further training opportunities have helped her? Her answer surprises me, because she refers not to the nascent part of her career, but her time at Olympiakos.

“We were discussing this yesterday actually,” she says. “I wish I would have had a mentor or someone that could really share with me, share experiences, the adversities, things that would really boost myself when I was feeling ‘Maybe I'm not right. Maybe I'm not doing a job or whatever.’ 

“I wish I would have this support to be honest and this is something that we are really keen to try to find for young leaders.”

Tournament afterglow

The afterglow of the successful Women’s Euros has left a feelgood factor about the women’s game. But has this almost, in a way, papered over some of the diversity challenges facing women actually working in football? 

She says that the success of the tournament and the visibility it created can help initiate a broader cultural change that works its way through the game. It’s not just changing “a couple of things from the top” or “planting someone there”, she says.

“We need to start this procedure from below, so the more women that are involved either as player, or fans or executives from diverse groups, the more is fed up to the top.”

At this point, Souloukou’s ECA colleague, its head of women’s football, Claire Bloomfield, joins in the conversation.

“From a women's football perspective, these tournaments are crucial in accelerating interest in football full stop, whether it's men's or women's,” says Bloomfield.

“I don't just mean in terms of buying a ticket to a match and following your local team; it's also about hiring people to pursue careers in football, whether that be as a referee, as a coach, as a physiotherapist, as an executive.

“I think these tournaments which capture the hearts and minds of the world, let alone England, play a hugely important role in helping us do this. So of course, when we see these hugely successful women's competitions, that obviously helps to accelerate some of the messages, and one of the things that obviously came of it is to make sure there is a huge talent pool we want to inspire the next generation to follow.”

2030 vision

I ask both women where our conversation will be in 2030. Will we still be talking about everyday sexism, as witnessed in the Greek Super League boardroom, or counting female club delegates at ECA General Assemblies on our fingers? Or will the conversation have moved on?

Souloukou refers to a recent “depressing” UN study which says that equal representation in positions of power won’t come until the middle of the next century as evidence of the scale of the overall challenge. “It’s not an easy thing to change,” she admits.

In football Bloomfield says that she is hopeful of “significant strides” by then. “But I think it's also about all of us, through society and not just through football,” she adds and goes beyond “acknowledging our responsibility and taking concrete action.”

“We will continue to promote and discuss with members, but we'll certainly be doing all that we can with Lina's guidance to make sure that we deliver on our objectives.”