Former U.S. Women’s National Team coach Jill Ellis unleashed a controversial take about the 2028 Women’s Club World Cup on Tuesday.
Ellis, who became FIFA’s chief football officer after leaving the San Diego Wave in late 2024, said she has “not heard anything” about Qatar’s reported interest in bidding for the event, but defended the potential host nation from criticism.
“I’m going to put my personal hat on, there are over 500 bills in the U.S. with anti-gay legislation on them,” Ellis, who is married to a woman, said in a press conference. “I also come from the U.S., but right now there’s a big light being shown on that. So I’m very, very careful not to throw stones in glass houses, right?”
To Ellis’s point, the American Civil Liberties Union says nearly 350 bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community are active in 2026, and it tracked more than 615 anti-gay bills in the U.S. last year. President Donald Trump’s administration has also targeted transgender athletes in what it has called an effort to protect women’s sports.
But the situation in the U.S. and Qatar are far from comparable.
Qatar was heavily scrutinized for its human rights abuses when it hosted the Men’s World Cup in 2022. Players had planned to wear “One Love” armbands in protest, but were threatened with on-field punishments by FIFA, a move that drew criticism from coaches, federations, and supporters. It is illegal to be gay in Qatar, and the country has a history of recent abuse and discrimination toward women, LGBTQ+ individuals, migrant workers. In the soccer realm, Qatar’s women’s national team has been inactive for over a decade. Meanwhile, in much of the U.S. and Europe, women’s soccer is closely linked to the LGBTQ+ community.
In her comments on Wednesday, Ellis said “We want to try and get as many people interested in this to want to host it.”
“We have always called upon FIFA to state explicitly that any country which criminalises homosexuality will be regarded as being in breach of FIFA’s human rights standards and therefore ineligible to apply to host future competitions,” the U.K.-based Football Supporters’ Association said in a statement about Qatar’s reported interest in hosting the tournament. “Their failure to do so, while simultaneously claiming that ‘football is for all,’ is hypocritical, disingenuous and discriminatory.”
FIFA has not announced any host for the tournament, which will follow the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil. Outlets including ESPN and The Athletic have reported that no discussions have happened about potential hosts after The Guardian firstreported last week that Qatar is in talks with FIFA to host the event.
The FIFA council approved a January 2028 tournament last month, which Ellis said on Tuesday was “the window everybody agreed upon.” However, England’s top-flight Women’s Super League said a potential January tournament coinciding with the middle of their fall-to-spring season “could be catastrophic.” The league has asked FIFA to move the tournament to the summer. The most recent Men’s Club World Cup, a significantly revamped version of the old seven-team spectacle, was held in the U.S. last summer.
