For the tournament director of the Women's European Championship, football was simply a job for a long time. Until now

For two years, Doris Keller has been boarding the train in Zurich every Monday morning at 6:02 a.m. She sits in first class, shows her GA travelcard, and then does nothing. Keller sets her alarm for 6:55 a.m., just before Bern, where she has to change trains.

Until then, she's relaxing. It's one of the few hours in her week when Keller has no appointments. Shortly after 9 a.m., she arrives at the headquarters of European Football Association (UEFA) in Nyon, where she and her team have an office wing.

Keller is the tournament director of the Women's European Football Championship, which kicks off on Wednesday. It's one of the biggest sporting events in Switzerland in recent decades. Nearly 700,000 people will watch the 31 matches in the stadium . The tournament is a mega-event, and Keller is the most important person. At least when it comes to organization.

Since taking up her duties in May 2023, she has spent Mondays through Wednesdays in Nyon. On the remaining days of the week, Keller, who lives in Zurich, tours Switzerland: She engages with officials at the eight host cities and various federal offices, lobbying in Bern for additional federal funding, and appearing as a guest speaker at Google, the University of St. Gallen, and the Center Party. All in the name of football. Keller never even wanted to be in football.

Doris Keller, 53, grew up in Liebefeld in the Bernese municipality of Köniz. She is the youngest of four children in a sports-loving family. Keller skis, plays volleyball, and does orienteering, a sport that demands decisive action. She is talented and competes in competitions.

Once, she accompanied her father to the Swiss Cup final at the Wankdorf Stadium. Keller could have turned this into media-friendly kitsch: The girl who watched the cup final with wide eyes is now organizing an even bigger tournament. But Keller says: "Becoming tournament director has nothing to do with my past. I had little contact with football; I only got into it by chance."

Keller refuses to connect her history to the present. She has an unromantic view of life. Keller says: "I grew up in a family that wasn't very emotional, but very, very rational."

After completing her commercial apprenticeship, Keller learned languages, traveled to New Zealand and Australia, and lived in Ticino and Bordeaux. One morning, she noticed a job advertisement in the newspaper from the Swiss Ski Federation; they were looking for an organizer who spoke several foreign languages. She applied, was accepted, and commuted between Bern and the ski resorts for four years. For Keller, these were coordinates of small-scale living. She wanted to see the world.

So she switched to a marketing agency that also worked for UEFA and the Champions League. Even back then, the competition was the premium product of international club football. Whether in Milan or Madrid, the advertising boards everywhere featured the same sponsors, the same anthem blared from the loudspeakers, and the players played with the same ball. Champions League matches were superlative events, timed down to the second – Keller learned about them during those years.

Keller says she served as parking coordinator at the 2002 and 2003 Champions League finals in Glasgow and Manchester, among other roles. Her detailed LinkedIn profile states: "Transport Coordinator."

Keller can be very humble. And Keller can be very self-confident. In the years that followed, she showed both sides of herself, depending on the situation.

In 2004, she was hired by sports marketer Martin Blaser. The Bernese native has excellent connections in the Swiss sports world. He organized tennis tournaments, marketed the Spengler Cup in ice hockey, and the Swiss Cup in football. Blaser later became sports director at Grasshopper Club, and today he is the CEO of FC Lugano.

At that time, Blaser's agency began organizing friendly matches. In the fall of 2005, it signed the English and Argentinian national teams and rented the Stade de Genève. Within a few weeks, Blaser and his team were putting together what they called "a Champions League final." Keller was responsible for skiing at Blaser's agency. But she was determined to be there in Geneva; she felt confident she could do it. She approached Blaser several times, offering her help.

"She basically told me I couldn't really do without her," Blaser recalls. Eventually, he agrees, and Keller becomes his right-hand man. The two reserve two meeting rooms in the Encore Hotel next to the stadium and convert them into an office. A few days later, 29,000 spectators are in the sold-out stadium, watching England win 3-2 with David Beckham. Keller says: "I owe a lot to Martin Blaser. He put his trust in me."

Keller's second mentor was Philippe Huber of Kentaro AG, which later went bankrupt. At the time, the company specialized in hosting friendly football matches.

In the spring of 2006, Blaser and Huber joined forces. They summoned enough megalomania to lure record-breaking world champions Brazil to a training camp in Weggis in the canton of Lucerne. Keller was there again, and once again a football stadium was transformed: This time, the SC Weggis sports field became the 5,000-seat Thermoplan Arena . In the premises of the neighboring coffee machine manufacturer, Blaser, Huber, and Keller set up a fitness room and a media center. They organized and improvised. And they were successful.

At the time, the Seleção was a seemingly absurd collection of world-class players: Dida, Roberto Carlos, Kaká, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, all of them came to Weggis and filled the stands – even though they were only training. The training camp became a popular summer festival and burned itself into the collective memory of Swiss football fans.

Blaser says: "Anyone who builds a camp like this can't spend a lot of time studying. A problem has to be solved in an hour. Doris can do that. She tells you, 'Come on, give it here, I'll do it.' She's a doer. We couldn't have done it without her."

When the Brazilians' training camp was announced, Blaser and Huber sat in front of the journalists. "I preferred the role of number two," says Keller. It remains that way to this day. At first, she doesn't even want to say whether she has any siblings or how she grew up. Instead, she says: "It's about women's football, not about Doris Keller."

Keller and Huber continued to accompany the Brazilian national team in the years that followed. Kentaro AG secured the rights to all of the team's friendlies. The company found opponents and referees, rented a stadium, booked the hotel, and organized the players' visas, bus travel, and meals. And if a player forgot their toothbrush, Keller was there to get one for them.

Once, in Chicago, Brazilian full-back Maicon approached her and said, "It's kind of weird. You work at every hotel we stay at."

Kentaro AG isn't above any trip. It has sent the Brazilian star ensemble to play in Oman, Tanzania, and Estonia. And in 2011, even to Zimbabwe with its dictator Robert Mugabe.

Huber and Keller recount how Mugabe, accompanied by his armed bodyguards, entered the pitch before the start of the match and shook hands with each player. How he was still standing on the pitch after several minutes, which is why the game couldn't kick off. At some point, Huber intervened, approaching Mugabe and telling him he had to leave the pitch. Huber was then immediately expelled from the stadium.

Keller not only met Mugabe. She also dealt with Brazilian football association president Ricardo Teixeira, who had accepted bribes. In 2022, she traveled to Qatar for FIFA, where she oversaw sponsorship activities in one of the eight stadiums. Keller was never on a mission, never aspired to improve the world. She enjoyed the travels. And her responsibilities. "For me, it was primarily a job."

That's different now, says Keller . Organizing a tournament in one's own country is "meaningful." Others incorporate Anglicisms to appear as international as possible. For Keller, it's linguistic pragmatism. The first word that comes to mind is the shortest path to the end of the sentence.

Keller's days are long; she's adapted to the rhythm of international football and often works late into the night. She used to drink 20 cups of coffee a day; now it's down to 10. "My lifestyle isn't particularly sustainable," says Keller.

Why all this for a sport she didn't find meaningful for a long time? Keller says: "I want to advance women's football. And I simply enjoy working."

There are still six days left until the tournament begins in Switzerland. Doris Keller visits St. Jakob-Park in Basel, which UEFA is currently polishing to a high shine. Keller is in a good mood, as the European Championship is almost sold out.

She passes through a box filled with pallets from a Dutch brewery, talking on the phone in English. She climbs through the glass doors into the stadium and down the stairs to the pitch. The lawn sprinkler sighs evenly, a circular saw whines, and Keller is on the phone again, this time in French ("Je ne suis plus là"). UEFA sponsors are already illuminated on the LED boards, and a banner with the tournament's lofty slogan "The Summit of Emotions" hangs under the roof.

When one of Keller's employees arrives, they move away a few meters. He gestures, she nods understandingly, then they both laugh. Keller continues through the players' tunnel into the catacombs, where construction workers are currently building wooden walls to cover FC Basel graffiti. Through another door. And then another. Suddenly she's outside the stadium, crosses the street, and disappears into the "Accreditation Centre." She's still there somewhere, the orienteer.

The next stop is the opening match between Switzerland and Norway . Keller will watch the match from a box. She's determined to attend a match every day. But she knows: "So much can happen in a tournament." And then she has to be available.