“They threw me out in the seventh month of pregnancy”

BarcelonaIn June 2021, the nightmare began for Darly Zoqbi when he tore his cruciate ligament in the last game of the 2020-2021 season. He played with the Romanian Gloria Bistrita. The injury that plagues women’s sport brought her to a halt. Before entering the operating room, however, she managed to agree with the club to fulfill one of her vital goals: to be a mother in that season away from the courts. The entity, however, did not keep its word and left Zoqbi in the lurch: “They tried to tear up the contract in the seventh month of pregnancy.”

“I had just had a long-term injury and they allowed me to try to get pregnant during my recovery. Luckily, I got there quickly!” Zoqbi recalls. “I have a contract with the team until this summer and it was a pregnancy agreed with them. It was not a personal decision of mine, in parallel”, defends the goalkeeper, who confesses that she feels betrayed by the club that so many times she asked to be team captain. “I think they were counting on everything to go wrong and that I wouldn’t be able to come back for the pre-season, but after 30 days of giving birth I was already running. And that Nicole was born by caesarean section. I played sports all year pregnancy and after a month I could go back,” she recalls.

“I feel betrayed”

A few weeks before giving birth, she received the bad news: the club had decided to terminate her contract. “The argument they give me to end the relationship is the pregnancy. I think they used it as an excuse when really the problem was that I had torn my cruciate ligament. They, by law, cannot end the contract with an injured player,” she explains pained.

Zoqbi, despite knowing the club’s intentions, prepared to be able to start the pre-season with the rest of the team. But the call to rejoin never came and the matter ended up in court. Justice ruled in favor of Zoqbi and forced the Gloria Bistrita to keep the contract in force. “They appealed the judge’s decision and lost again. There is no further appeal,” explains Zoqbi, who therefore has a contract with the club until July of this year. The Gloria Bistrita, however, refuses to readmit her and has not made any public statement to give its version of events.

“I’m disappointed. I’ve always been very professional and I’ve come out well from all the teams I’ve been in. They’ve treated me very badly for no reason. I’m still under contract and I can’t explain everything they’ve done,” warns Zoqbi , who is currently in Brazil with his family as he trains individually and looks for a team for the upcoming season. “I got pregnant because we agreed with the club and because I had one more year on my contract. How do you change teams after breaking your cruciate ligament and getting pregnant? I won’t find one!” says the worried portera, who hopes that by making her case public it can be solved and, moreover, it will help so that no one else has to experience the same situation.