The most powerful person in English women’s football takes a breath, scans the room and seems to pause for reflection. Nikki Doucet, the chief executive of the new company that is now running the top two women’s leagues in the country, has just been asked how it is going and the look in her eyes suggests there’s a lot she wants to say. “It’s a rollercoaster and it’s hard, but it’s fantastic. It’s so hard but it’s so great.”
The former Nike director is at the national football centre in St George’s Park, to sit down for her first newspaper interview since taking on the job of leading the team that runs the Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship. That responsibility was legally transferred over from the Football Association on 15 August but she has been in the post since November during the transition. It is a job she wanted to take on “because it’s an opportunity to help push women’s rights forward, through the power of sport” and she believes wholeheartedly in the game’s future.
