The president of the majority union of Spanish women's football (Futpro), Amanda Gutiérrez, opened the door to continue negotiating with the F League to reach an agreement on the minimum salary, but warned that "it is not possible to continue thinking" that a professional player I can live on 20,000 euros.
In an interview with EFE Television, the union leader pointed out that "there is always time to negotiate and talk" with the women's soccer employers to resolve the conflict over the minimum wage and thus call off the strike for the first two days of the competition.
"I don't believe that the players will close in on themselves and not listen to what the League has to say," said Gutiérrez, who acknowledged that the "stagnation in negotiations" has forced the unions to opt for a strike.
In this sense, the president of Futpro does not understand that the League's response to refusing to sign a minimum salary of 23,000 euros is that said amount "would not be sustainable" for many clubs.
"We players do not understand it given the economic situation of League F with the 42 million in commercial assets, the 35 million in audiovisual rights, in addition to the 22.5 million from the CSD, which has now injected 9.5 million," he pointed out. .
Gutiérrez's explanation for this argument by the employers is that the income from League F "is not reaching the clubs," which are responsible for paying the salaries of the soccer players.
"We made a request for the solidarity clause in the League F statutes to be applied, that the income must be distributed equally. The independent clubs perhaps need more millions than they need, for example, Barça "he said.
However, the president of Futpro accused League F of having been "reluctant" to show the accounts in a "transparent manner" in the negotiations and that the unions do not know "how many players in the league are affected" by the salary increase that they claim.
"They saw some numbers and said it was unviable, we see the same numbers and we see that it is viable," added Gutiérrez.
And he recalled: "The players are quite fed up with not being taken into account. We are the best team in the world, we have the player who has won two Ballon d'Ors, we have all the talent. What we cannot do is keep thinking that a soccer player can live on 20,000 euros. You can't."
Given this impasse between the employers and the unions, Gutiérrez stated that there would be no problem on the part of the players that the Higher Sports Council (CSD) would mediate to unblock the negotiations.
For her part, the women's soccer coordinator of the Association of Spanish Soccer Players (AFE), Cristina 'Keka' Vega, assured that the strike called for the first two days of the competition responds to the "resounding rejection" of the players to the last League F's proposal on the salary agreement.
"The other day we spent almost 11 hours at SIMA trying to reach an agreement with the employers to unblock the situation we have. The last proposal from the employers was a salary agreement of 20,000 euros this season, plus the possibility of a variable depending on of commercial benefits," he explained to EFE Television.
Vega explained that after this there was a counteroffer from all the unions, AFE, FUTPRO, Futbolistas ON, CCOO and UGT, which was 23,000 euros, with the possibility that this variable was 25,000 euros, something that the employers ruled out.
"The firm response of the employers' association was not to be able to accept an increase greater than those 20,000 euros, which would be unfeasible for the competition. What we did was transfer this entire situation at SIMA to the players in an assembly and their rejection was resounding and unacceptable. , hence this call for a strike on the first and second day," he insisted.
The start of the 2023-2024 F League season was scheduled for this Friday, at 9:00 p.m. at the Jesús Navas stadium in Seville, between Sevilla and UDG Tenerife.
