There is hope in the presentation this Thursday of the First Women’s Football Congress in Spain. After years of invisibility, professionals of this sport are organizing the event on November 21 and 22 in Irún to put on the table the challenges facing women’s football and the sport in which women participate in general. “We are making history very quickly,” said Mónica Marchante, a sports journalist who presented the press conference at F League headquarters.
Women’s sports leagues general public They haven’t had much of a following, but in the case of football, after winning the World Cup last year and a good performance in this year’s Olympics, the mood is different. It is becoming more and more common for girls to wear the jerseys of national team players and have Alexia Putellas’ number 11 or Jenni Hermoso’s number 10 on their backs.
“By giving a voice to women who have taken their sporting careers to the top, it is possible to position these athletes as alternative references who inspire the approaches, behaviors and model the dreams of other girls, boys and adolescents, in addition to reduce inequalities. in grassroots sport,” said Goizane Álvarez, sports delegate of the Provincial Delegation of Gipuzkoa, organizer of the event. “The players fought for their dreams against everything and they managed to conquer many spaces,” he believes.
Thanks to the greatest push for women’s football in recent times, high-level professionals will meet in what will be their first congress, in the organization of which the absence of the Spanish Football Federation stands out, although the The organization specifies that it is not because they refused to be present. We simply did not ask them because the means available were sufficient.
The event will include presentations from players and coaches, as well as medical and mental health experts. The sector needs it: a study by the FUTPRO association found that four in five elite footballers have experienced anxiety or depressive symptoms due to the demanding nature of the competition.
According to the event’s website, this topic will be covered “from the historical roots of women’s football to the technical and social complexities it faces today.” Throughout the discussion tables and brainstorming sessions, “the evolution of women’s football in Spain and around the world will be explored in depth, (…) injury risk factors specific to players, (…) ) sexual violence in sport and (…) the importance of women’s refereeing for fairness and equality in the game.”
Among the speakers there are diverse profiles, most of them personalities from women’s football: the coach Natalia Arroyo, the former footballer and commentator Vero Boquete, the president of League F, Beatriz Álvarez, the active player Ivana Andrés or the director of Atlético. of Madrid Femenino, Lola Romero. There will also be successful professionals in other fields, such as Eli Pinedo, handball player.
A pioneering conference
Women first had their own football league in 1988, but prejudice and lack of societal attention have until now prevented them from organizing a high-profile match like the one in Irun . Now that they have gained this notoriety, the organizers say “for me and for all my colleagues” by focusing not only on football as a sport, but also as a sporting discipline with “great roots and power of transformation for the whole of society. explains Álvarez, the representative of Gipuzkoa. “The ultimate goal is to eliminate cultural codes that limit women in all areas of society,” adds the organizer. For Pablo Vilches, CEO of Ligue F, women’s football must be the “engine” of women’s sport and “open the doors to women” in other disciplines.
A lot has changed since this congress was born from an idea in 2022. In just over two years, the Spanish team has won a World Cup, competed fiercely in the Olympics and is now optimistically looking ahead to the Next year’s European Cup. The professionalization of women’s football – they went on strike and managed to improve their conditions last year – also has a lot to do with greater social impact and more people, Vilches adds. “These successes have social impacts and force social structures to move, but we must continue to work so that these successes are not just temporary,” concludes Álvarez.
