National team protests are not new but club move shows readiness to fight for decent day-to-day living standards too

The announcement that footballers in Spain’s top division will begin an indefinite strike on the weekend of 16-17 November is hugely significant in the battle for a global professional women’s game.

There have been strikes and player protests before but these have often revolved around the conditions and pay of the national team.

Toni Duggan: ‘I wanted the ground to suck me in, for the game just to end’ Read more

In 2017 Republic of Ireland players threatened action after going public on having to change in airport toilets and sharing tracksuits.

The same year Denmark players forfeited a World Cup qualifier against the Netherlands while in a pay dispute with their football association – a decision which ultimately cost them a place in France after they finished second in the group and went into tough play-offs for the final European place.

Members of the Nigeria national team held a sit-in at their hotel after this year’s World Cup exit to demand outstanding expenses be paid – they did the same after winning the Afcon in 2004 and again in Cameroon in 2016.

The US Women’s National Team are suing US Soccer in their fight for equal pay.

There are many other examples. But there are not examples, at least in the modern era, of players across an entire league threatening action. It marks a huge change in attitude.

Previously female footballers were sort of willing to shut up, to be grateful for the right to play. The demands to be aptly compensated for representing your country felt a just cause, but this did not translate to the game at club level.

What makes this threatened action significantis that it is about the day-to-day, the right to a decent standard of living and an unwillingness to go on accepting that professional standards be demanded of players without the contracts and pay to reflect it.

Tellingly, it is not a handful of players threatening to strike; 189 representatives voted 93% in favour of taking action across the league’s 16 clubs.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Almost 200 female footballers voted 93% in favour of taking action across the league’s 16 clubs. Photograph: AFE

The top contracted players are standing shoulder to shoulder with the poorest. Six players from the champions, Atlético Madrid, attended the meeting which voted so overwhelmingly for action. Four turned out from Barcelona, including the Spanish national team’s fourth-highest goalscorer, Jenni Hermoso. They are symbolically backing the push for a collective bargaining agreement across the league, which would include as a minimum €16,000 (£13,800) annually for a 40-hour working week, €12,000 for a part-time 30-hour week, maternity leave and paid time off.

These wages are low. They may be higher than Spain’s minimum wage of approximately €12,600 a year for 2019, but they are significantly lower than the average wage of Spanish workers which is €23,000, according to the country’s office of national statistics.

There may be a fear that clubs will struggle to pay, in particular the four teams without the backing of a men’s club – Madrid CFF, Sporting de Huelva, Logroño and UDG Tenerife – but serious questions have to be asked about the commitment of those clubs and the league if that is the case. Clubs receive €350,000 a season from the federation (a requirement as a government organisation, not out of the goodness of their hearts) and they are being offered €500,000 by the league for their TV rights. If the welfare and support of players is not the number one priority and is not what sustainability is being built around, then what is the focus?

For the 12 teams backed by wealthy men’s clubs the excuses are even more moot.

That clubs are digging in and resistant to the most minimal of employment rights for their players ispretty galling.

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Strike action is always a last resort. That it has taken 18 meetings across 13 months is testament to this, but now the players have had enough.

Whether we reach 16 November at an impasse remains to be seen. The threat of industrial action can be very powerful; whereas clubs are happy to let talks rumble on in the background, strike action hits them where it hurts: in their pockets. TV rights and sponsorship deals depend on games happening. It is also extremely important that a club maintains a good image for invested parties – funnily enough, striking female footballers is not a good look.

Women’s football is entering a new era of professionalism and mass audiences and players are feeling empowered by it. Spain’s players are leading the way, but we can be sure they will not be the last to collectively organise on this scale.

Talking points

• Chelsea’s defender Maria Thorisdóttir has undergone surgery on the leg she fractured in training. Having scored a blistering late winner as Chelsea came from behind to beat Arsenal, the Norwegian suffered the break in the run-up to Sunday’s defeat of West Ham and will miss the rest of 2019.

• Reign FC head coach Vlatko Andonovski has been unveiled as the manager of the US women’s national team. The 43-year-old, who has worked with Megan Rapinoe at Reign FC, takes over from two-times World Cup-winning manager Jill Ellis. It is expected that he will retain Dawn Scott as the high performance coach and the goalkeeper coach Graeme Abel.

• Phil Neville has recalled Toni Duggan for England’s upcoming friendlies against Germany and the Czech Republic. Striker Ellen White and Georgia Stanway are training with the side as they continue to make their return to full fitness. Most notably Chelsea’s Fran Kirby has been omitted. The PSG defender Alana Cook, a non-playing squad member for the previous camp, has not been called up and is expected to be included in Vlatko Andonovski’s first USWNT squad as the two nations vie for the allegiance of the dual citizen.

• Four of Germany’s World Cup squad are missing from the group that will travel to England for the showpiece Wembley fixture. The goalkeeper Almuth Schult, Turbine Potsdam’s Svenja Huth, captain Alex Popp and debut World Cup goalscorer Giulia Gwinn have not recovered from injury. Arsenal’s Leonie Maier and Manchester City’s Pauline Bremer are in the squad.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arsenal’s Leonie Maier, left, pictured here with Felicity Gibbons of Brighton, is part of the Germany squad to face England at Wembley. Photograph: Kate McShane/Getty Images

• North Carolina Courage cruised past Chicago Red Star to confirm a second consecutive NWSL championship. Goals from the Brazilian Debinha and the USWNT World Cup winners Jess McDonald, Crystal Dunn and Sam Mewis sealed the emphatic victory in from of a sold-out 10,277 crowd. Heather O’Reilly made her last appearance for North Carolina having announced she would retire at the end of the season and was substituted in the 89th minute to huge applause.