This month marks one year since the birth of Futpro, the first union dedicated exclusively to women's soccer and the one chosen by the soccer players to represent them in the negotiations for the new collective agreement. “Establishing ourselves as the majority union 22 days after it was born was a surprise,” acknowledges its president Amanda Gutiérrez, who arrives at the newsroom of La Vanguardia smiling but tired. And it is that they have been twelve very intense months: “We have not stopped going in fits and starts. We did not get out of a conflict that we were already getting into another one, ”she confesses to us.
How are the negotiations of the collective agreement going?
They are going well, a bit slow, because the meetings are quite separated in time, but the relationship between the F League and the unions is good. I think we all want the same thing because if the F League does well, the soccer players will also do well.
What are the soccer players' priorities?
Increase the salary, eliminate the partiality -in the current agreement it is 75% of the day- and the compensation list -which marks exorbitant amounts that the clubs must pay as training rights if they want to sign a young player- , and issues such as motherhood, mental health or the protocol of sexual action are essential matters for us. The duration of the agreement will be linked to these points, especially the salary.
You have made a proposal of 50 thousand euros. What have you based on?
We did a very complete study in which we saw, among other things, what the club staff charged: the one who is selling the ticket booths, the one who cleans the seats, the one who distributes the drinks... and we came to the conclusion that who earn more than soccer players. Women's football exists thanks to them, they are the main asset, it cannot be that the rest of the personnel who work around them are charging more than them, they cannot consent. We also analyze the salaries of other professions, the average of what the soccer players currently earn or the income available to the F League and you realize that it is not crazy to ask for 50,000 euros.
Has the beneficial salary agreement for the referees harmed the soccer players?
For me not at all. Futpro will never refuse a group of women to fight to improve their working conditions. The referees valued their work, now it's up to the soccer players, and I don't think there should be a conflict because we understand that a soccer player is worth more than those 25,000 euros that the referees were said to charge.
But the money comes from the same place.
The F League has raised 77 million euros for the next five years. That is a lot of money and three years from now that amount should continue to increase if things are done well, because we have seen that it is a quite attractive product. Therefore, we understand that there is enough money for the clubs to have the resources to increase salaries.
With the handicap that the realities of Barça or Levante Las Planas have nothing to do with it.
We have five independent clubs that have been investing and trusting in women's football for a long time, we must provide them with more resources. That is what the F League is for, to help the rest of the clubs that already have their men's sections, to understand that, perhaps, the first years of life will receive less income so that these five have more, to balance the competition.
Is it fair for those who have been betting hard for more years?
At Futpro we also have players who live different realities and it is relatively easy to reach a consensus and understand that there are times when you have to be more supportive so that other colleagues can have better conditions. But I understand that at the club level it is much more complex and there are other interests involved. It is a very complicated task that League F must manage.
Interests that are constantly colliding in this first year of professional football.
Conflicts already existed before, but when it became a professional League, it acquired much more power and these disputes became more publicized. At a time when there are so many problems it is because it is a product that is going to generate a lot of income and that is why there are so many power struggles to get a piece of the pie that is women's football. What is clear is that the soccer players cannot continue paying the piper of the constant conflicts that exist between the F League and the Federation.
Are you afraid that these fights will end up 'loading' women's football?
Of course, and what's more, if in the end this product doesn't turn out well, or as many people say 'the bubble bursts', it won't be because the soccer players ask for 50,000 euros. It will be because of that power war, because of the desire that different institutions or people have to take a piece of this cake and not let it go. That is going to be what destroys women's football, and not that a player asks for 50,000 euros.
Beyond economic issues, the new agreement will include issues forgotten in the current one, such as maternity.
The professional career of a soccer player coincides with her childbearing age. Our job is that the day a soccer player considers becoming a mother, the fact that her profession is in danger is not an aspect to take into account. We want you to have as much information as possible about all aspects of getting pregnant during your active career.
Questions like what?
The maternity benefit or the type of training that is done when you are already pregnant or after giving birth so that you can return to work as soon as possible. Of all this there is absolutely nothing. You have to start doing studies, you have to start researching... this will take time, but you have to start now.
Then there are other accessory issues such as the provision of lactation areas in the fields or the possibility of a caregiver coming with the mother while training or playing. After all, soccer players travel a lot and it is very important that they can do it without being separated from their babies. This is something that we are already seeing in other leagues, such as Alex Morgan.
In Spain we also have some examples.
We have mothers in the First Division like Marta Corredera (Real Madrid) and María de Alharilla (Levante) who we ask a lot. They have had the support of their clubs but, if they had not, the current collective agreement would not help them.
He also hopes to improve the sexual harassment protocol.
When the whole Rayo Vallecano affair with Carlos Santiso happened, we went to the collective agreement, which has a sexual harassment protocol, but we realized that this protocol forced some of the soccer players to speak with their club. This totally breaks the anonymity and more so in that situation in which the president himself, who had hired Santiso, had vetoed them and prevented them from speaking publicly. In this context, who would dare to speak? Here we realized that there was something that was not working in this agreement and since then we have been working to try to establish a protocol that allows, above all things, to protect the victim. We understand that this is not going to be a conflictive fact and that with the new League there will not be any kind of problem. It is very important to have a protocol, first, that they can easily access; and second, that it protects them and they can use it when the time comes.
Mental health is another aspect that has been put on the table.
There are clubs that do not have a psychologist and others that do, but even in these there are footballers who do not go to them for issues that are perhaps more personal or that do not have to do purely with the scope of their work. We have to find a way for them to have access to a psychologist who is totally unrelated to the club and with whom they feel safe to be able to talk about whatever, whenever they want.
