Women’s football, on alert against Sports Joint Stock Companies

With the discussion about the Sports Joint Stock Companies (SAD) installed again in Argentina after Javier Mileicandidate for president for La Libertad Avanza (LLA), spoke out in favor of the privatization of football, clubs of all categories spoke out against an eventual landing of the SAD and they defended the figure of a non-profit civil association.

The fight was joined by Women’s Footballdue to the eventual impact that the entry of private capital with its profitability logic could generate on the discipline.

Paula Ojeda, Equity and Gender Manager of the Argentine Football Association (AFA)who last Monday led a historic meeting at AFA in which more than 100 women who work in the different clubs of Argentina They gathered to express their rejection of the SADtalked with Telamdefended her position and told how the privatization of institutions could affect women’s football.

“The figure of the SAD is based on generating economic benefits, they pursue profits from companies or groups. That is, they are completely lucrative. Their eventual arrival would generate very great damage to all of football and even more so to women’s football”began Ojeda.

“The clubs and their people not only work for professional or amateur women’s football, they also do it for their identity, their culture, to get boys and girls off the streets, to contain vulnerable people, to transmit values. It is very good that the institutions defend that commitment and Ifull of pride that we women once again raise our voices united, defending what belongs to uswhich is that the clubs belong to the members,” he considered.

In closing, he explained: “Women’s football is a fundamental part of the empowerment of women in sport and in institutional life. More and more people are following the games, and those people are club members. From our places we work so that women’s football has greater visibility and growth.”

“That is why, in the face of these demonstrations, We, the women of football, convene ourselves at the AFA headquarters in Viamonte. We have been working so hard and for a long time to have spaces in institutions and we know that we always have to fight, that together we transform things. “We have to make ourselves heard again.”complete.

In the same line, Marcelo Achilevice president of AFA and who, in her role, accompanied the women’s meeting at the headquarters of the entity that regulates football in our country, also took a stand against the SAD in dialogue with Telam: “Passion is not negotiable. Clubs must always be in the hands of their members. “They already came several times with the SAD proposal and we always said no, that this format has no place in our clubs.”

“The objective, from the reason for the constitution of a Public Limited Company, is profit. It has 100% to do with commercial matters. And clubs, as non-profit Civil Associations, have to do with the common good, the good of the community. The history of clubs has nothing to do with Public Limited Companies. “Football already said no, women’s football said no and the Human Rights subcommittees also said no.”

The AFA and Unionized Argentine Footballers (FAA) agreed to the professionalization of women’s football in Argentina in March 2019 in search of a more equitable, inclusive and diverse activity, which involved the payment of contracts with an established basic salary plus the benefit of social work and medical care.

In the country, it is estimated that just over half of the female soccer players in the 20 First Division teams are professionals, although their average salaries do not even reach 5% of what men earn.