NEW YORK: Football personalities take the top three positions in Forbes’ latest ranking of the most important women in sport writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Top of the table is Fatma Samoura, the Senegalese secretary-general of FIFA who left her work as a United Nations coordinator in 2016 to take up the No2 role at the world football federation.

No2 for Forbes is Lydia Nsekera from Burundi who became, in 2013, the first woman elected to the FIFA executive committee (now council) and is also a member of the International Olympic Committee.

A surprising third place is taken by Florence Hardouin, the director-general of the French football federation and the first woman elected to the executive committee of European governing body UEFA.

4, Angela Dong, general manager of Nike Greater China;

5, Marina Granovskaia, Russian director of Chelsea;

6, Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport;

7, Moya Dodd, Australian member of the AFC executive committee and chair of the FIFA player status committee;

8, Caroline Wozniacki, Danish tennis player;

9, Nita Ambani, owner of Mumbai Indians;

10 Claire Williams, deputy team principal and commercial director of Williams FI team

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