Post-playing career
As a specialist in employment law, Klaveness has sometimes been involved with disputes between football clubs and their employees. She also served on the management committee of NISO, the union for sports people in Norway.
Klaveness announced her retirement from football in March 2012. Further to her career as an attorney, she is also serving as a deputy judge in the Oslo court. Since her playing retirement, Klaveness has also worked as a television football pundit. She was a studio commentator for NRK's coverage of the 2014 [men's] World Cup, after which she was subject to sexist criticism by internet trolls.
In 2018, Klaveness was hired as director of elite football in the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF). On 7 March 2022, Klaveness was elected as Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) president. She is the first woman to lead NFF in their 120-year organization history. She represents her childhood club IL Kvernbit.
During FIFA's Congress in Doha in March 2022, Klaveness gave a speech arguing that the international football community should do more to "help migrant workers in Qatar, more to protect LGBTQ+ supporters at the World Cup, and more to make the global game welcoming to all". Both the speech and the trip to Doha itself had to be cleared by the Norwegian government. Since Klaveness is married to a woman, Ingrid Camilla Fosse Sæthre, she risked seven years in prison in Qatar just by traveling there. The conclusion from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the embassy was that as long as she did all of her statements in public, it should be safe for her to travel.
Soon afterwards, Fritt Ord announced that they would award Klaveness the Fritt Ord Honorary Award for the speech. Klaveness has also been critical of the 2034 FIFA World Cup due to how the process for bidding heavily favored Saudi Arabia. Prior to Norway's 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign, Klavenes called for an investigation into Israel (who Norway was drawn against), stating that the NFF could not remain indifferent to the civilian casualties in Gaza since the Gaza war. In April 2026, Klaveness called for the abolition of the FIFA Peace Prize, saying that it was not the organization's role to award such a prize.
On 23 July 2026, it was reported that the Norwegian Football Federation would submit a formal complaint to FIFA's Ethics Committee following the upholding of the suspension of United States forward Folarin Balogun in the Trump–FIFA red card controversy. In an interview, Klaveness called on FIFA president Gianni Infantino to acknowledge that the decision had been an "error".
Following FIFA's withdrawal of the proposed FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) investment plan, Klaveness emerged as one of the leading figures in UEFA's opposition to the initiative. She outlined potential governance options should FIFA's leadership face a broader challenge and later criticized the process surrounding the proposal as "economic blackmail."
On 4 August 2026, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter publicly endorsed Klaveness as his preferred successor to Gianni Infantino, describing her as "the only one who always took a clear stand" and arguing that "the time is right for a woman to take the lead" at FIFA. On 7 August, Klaveness led the Norwegian Football Federation in calling for Infantino to resign, stating that the federation had lost trust in his leadership and that there was "no way back" for him.
