When Joseph "Sepp" Blatter, president of the 203-nation Federation Internationale de Football Assn., said, "The future of football is feminine," he was speaking, of course, about soccer.
But he could also have been talking about Marla Messing, a 35-year-old attorney from Brentwood who, as president and chief executive of the third FIFA Women's World Cup, is charged with making the tournament a success on par with the men's World Cup in 1994, an event run by her mentor, Alan Rothenberg. The tournament is being billed as the largest single-sport women's event in the world and a watershed moment for women's sports in general.
Though the 5-foot Messing is shouldering tremendous expectations, those who know her have no doubt in her ability to pull it off.
"She's smart, she's very hard-driving on herself and the people around her," Rothenberg said. "It's all business. She pushes [her staff], but not any harder than she pushes herself."
Only a few years ago, the idea that a woman could be in such a position of responsibility in world soccer would have been out of the question.
Until Blatter's election in Paris last June, FIFA, the world governing body of the sport, was held in the gnarled grip of Joao Havelange, an 82-year-old Brazilian whose 24-year reign as president was marked by autocratic practices and outdated ideas. Blatter is working to change entrenched attitudes, but progress is gradual.
"FIFA is pretty old school," acknowledged Rothenberg, who earned Havelange's trust while staging the immensely successful soccer tournament of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the even more successful 1994 World Cup in the U.S.
"They're not accustomed to having women in high places. And Marla obviously surprises them when they first see her. Because of her size and her age, they figure, 'Who is this little girl?'
"So when you go into a FIFA organizing committee meeting and there's not a single woman in the room except for secretaries taking the minutes, and then I introduce Marla, they say, 'What are you doing, Rothenberg? Have you lost your senses? You're putting women in responsible jobs.' "
Messing has first-hand experience with such attitudes.
She was 27 in 1992 when Rothenberg, then president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, made her one of his key lieutenants for World Cup '94, an executive vice president in charge of ticketing, entertainment and special events.
