2023-09-07 11:23:45
BarcelonaEl Sevilla – UDG Tenerife, scheduled for this Friday at 21 at the Estadio Jesús Navas in the Andalusian capital, was not played after a day of announcements and doubts related to the call for a strike by the unions that look after the rights of the players of League F, the First Division of state women’s football. In a messy day, the two teams confirmed in the middle of the afternoon the total suspension of the match and respect for the players’ strike.
The Canarian team, in any case, had traveled to Seville on Thursday in case the strike was finally called off. Without an agreement for the minimum wage demanded by the players, the strike continues. But yesterday’s day was particularly messed up due to a possible defect in form in the strike request, which could have been made late, so that if you don’t appear at a match you could incur some kind of illegality.
The strike request was submitted on September 4, but it should be made at least 5 days before the start of the first day. That is why the legitimacy of the strike call for the match scheduled for last night, but not for the rest of the days, was questioned. From the five convening unions, headed by Futpro, they defended at all times that it had been presented correctly.
The battle for commercial revenue
“Today, talking about equal pay in football (in the Men’s League the minimum salary is 182,000 euros) is not realistic. We have only had one year compared to the 40 that the men’s has. And they receive 2,000 million in audiovisual rights and we only receive 7”, argued in conversation with ARA Beatriz Álvarez, president of Liga F. In addition, she complains that the Superior Sports Council (CSD) “forces Liga F to pay the 20 % of the commercial income in the RFEF starting this year, which represent 1.5 million euros”. And he asks: “Since when is the poor the one who has to help the rich?”
In this sense, official sources of the CSD contacted the ARA to explain that this is a consequence of the fact that there is no coordination agreement between the F League and the RFEF – despite the fact that the statutes have been approved since March 2022-. Thus, as dictated by the new Sports Law, the CSD “had to resolve this June the aspects necessary for the development of the Women’s First Football Division”. The two objectives were “to fulfill the functions that the Sports Law attributes to the CSD in the absence of agreement between the parties” and “to guarantee the future of Spanish women’s football”.
According to the CSD, “this percentage of 20%” of the commercial income” that Liga F will have to give to the RFEF serves to “equalize the amounts collected by the men’s football agreement and is part of a distribution system the wealth of professional competitions for the promotion of non-professional categories”. On the other hand, the CSD “has committed to sustaining the structure of the F League in its launch between 2022 and 2024”. This will bring 20 million euros in this period: 5 in 2022, 7.5 in 2023 and another 7.5 in 2024.
This Friday, the Acting Minister of Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta, respected the union’s decision to call a strike for the first two days of the F League and assured that the central government will contribute to women’s professional football achieving the male quotas.
The unions confirm the strike
The five unions (FutPro, AFE, Futbolistas ON, CCOO and UGT) that are part of the social bank of the negotiation of the collective agreement already reported on Thursday that it is necessary to maintain the strike during the first two days of the F League.” We consider the economic proposal of League F to be unacceptable and we continue to maintain the five unions’ proposal regarding the minimum wage that must be applied so that female footballers in our country have salaries commensurate with their talent. We are surprised and saddened by the position of the employer during the negotiations, which at all times has been of firm immobility before the proposal made by the unions”.
On the other hand, they report that on Wednesday they held an assembly with the F League players, who found the employer’s proposal “unacceptable and they are saddened that they have to go on strike despite having lowered the initial proposal to 23,000 annual euros”.
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