The Argentinian club San Lorenzo de Almagro have announced the signing of the country’s first professional women’s football contracts.
It is a historic moment for the sport in South America, where women footballers have long been treated as second-class citizens compared to their male counterparts.
In a press conference Matías Lammens, the president of San Lorenzo, announced the signing of 15 professional contracts for their women’s team, including Macarena Sánchez and the team captain, Eliana Medina.
San Lorenzo will fully finance eight of the contracts. The rest will be paid for partially by the Argentinian FA. In March, the AFA announced it would create and support a countrywide professional women’s football league. It pledged to give about $3,000 as a monthly subsidy to clubs that would sign a minimum of eight women to professional contracts.
The club’s new marquee signing is Sánchez a 27-year-old forward, who became a symbol for the movement to professionalize the women’s league after she sued her former club, UAI Urquiza and the AFA, seeking payment for the seven years she played there.
“There are so many players who retired without being able to be professionals. This battle has gone on for a long time,” said Sánchez.
#ElFemenino
(@FemeninoAFA)Las jugadoras que firmaron contrato con @SanLorenzo pic.twitter.com/gFkNGKueGO
San Lorenzo
(@SanLorenzo)💙😄❤️ Cuando firmás tu primer contrato como futbolista profesional#FútbolFemeninoProfesional#OrgulloAzulgrana#VamosLasSantitas#VamosCiclón pic.twitter.com/e60KQlINaw
Despite providing nearly half the Argentina national team’s players, women playing for UAI Urquiza’s first team were not paid wages. They were offered a $400 peso ($10 or £8.25) monthly stipend for travel and offered part-time non-sporting roles inside the organization to support themselves financially.
Argentina’s national squad has qualified for this summer’s World Cup in France. But many of its clubs charge female footballers to compete, said Sánchez. Some do not cover the cost of kits, food and do not foot the bill for injury treatment.
She also blamed Argentina’s “retrograde” and “misogynistic” culture, in an interview with the Guardian, for keeping the women’s league precarious.
“The macho thinking of the people who have power is the only thing that prevents the professionalisation,” she said.
Sam Kelly, who covers Argentinian football from Buenos Aires on his podcast, Hand Of Pod, said it is a welcome publicity boost for the club that will “hopefully put pressure on some of the country’s other wealthier clubs to follow suit in the next couple of months”.
Last month, Boca Juniors’s women’s squad made history by playing their first match at the club’s storied Bombonera stadium, beating Lanús 5-0 before the men’s match.