The agreement reached yesterday at dawn to call off the second day of the footballers' strike was closed with the increase in the minimum salary from the current 16,000 euros, to 21,000 for this season, 22,500 next year and 23,500 for the third and final season of this new agreement. Almost a third of the total of almost four hundred players competing in the F League, a total of 91 footballers, will benefit this year from the increase in the minimum salary from 16,000 to 21,000 gross euros per year. Of these, less than thirty were earning the minimum salary in a League in which the average salary is about 30,000 euros.
It has been difficult to find a figure that would satisfy both parties. Finally, the agreement has been accepted by the players "in an exercise of responsibility with the fans of this sport", and by the clubs, who were looking for "a long-term agreement that would provide stability to the women's professional football project and allow a gradual and sustainable growth in accordance with the development of the competition.”
There have been many months of talks in negotiations that intensified at the beginning of September, with the call for a strike and the entry of mediation by SIMA (Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service). A lot has happened since those first proposals in which the employers offered a nominal increase of 500 euros, and the unions asked to reach 30,000 euros per year. In recent days there have been meetings and the tension at times was maximum. On Tuesday they were close to reaching an agreement, but the SIMA proposal (from 21,000 to 23,000 euros in three seasons) was not finally approved by the players. In the end, the agreement could be unlocked by adding a thousand euros spread over the last two seasons.
This is an agreement that only covers the minimum wage, “the main cause of the strike,” the unions explain, which will allow the season to finally start this weekend after the first day of the League was suspended due to the strike. Now, the social bank and the employers will have to sit down to negotiate the rest of the material of the collective agreement. Both parties have reiterated on more than one occasion that they agree to end partial contracts, but other important aspects remain regarding maternity, a sexual harassment protocol or the controversial compensation list. The latter, one of the great struggles of footballers who want to put an end to the exorbitant clauses that must be paid to sign players under 23 years of age as training rights.
This is the economic agreement reached between League F and unions to call off the strike
2023/24 season: 21,000 euros, which can be increased to 23,000 euros depending on the growth of the competition's commercial income.
2024/25 season: 22,500 euros, which can be increased to 25,000 euros depending on the growth of the competition's commercial income.
2025/26 season: 23,500 euros, which can be increased to 28,000 euros depending on the growth of the competition's commercial income.
