Pilar Alegría, a 46-year-old native of Zaragoza (La Zaida, 1977), has inherited the Sports portfolio of Miquel Iceta (2021-23) as head of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training since 2021. In the new legislature, Sports is no longer dependent from the Ministry of Culture to that of Education, for the first time in a cabinet of the socialist Pedro Sánchez.
Alegría, a fan of paddle tennis and racquetball, will be the 20th Minister of Sports in the history of the restored democracy and, in turn, the first woman since 2009, when Mercedes Cabrera held the portfolio. The Aragonese minister, who also assumes the role of Executive Spokesperson, faces numerous sporting challenges in this 2023-27 stage that is opening.
The organization of the football World Cup seven years from now, with the help of Portugal and Morocco, is one of the biggest organizational challenges that the Spanish Government will have to take on through the Higher Sports Council (CSD) as the managing body. . The challenge is huge, 48 years after the Naranjito World Cup: 104 matches in a month and a half of competition, with 48 teams (now there are 32), and 10 of the 18 venues in Spain (they will be designated in 2026), so that the organizational weight will fall on the country promoting the candidacy. The final, pending being made official, will be at the Santiago Bernabéu, so the semi-finals will most likely be played in Morocco and Portugal. With the majority of stadiums already built (the new Camp Nou and the new Mestalla de València are missing), the communications infrastructure will be basic to facilitate sustainable movements of fans and the organization with good connections between host cities such as Madrid (Metropolitan) , Seville (La Cartuja), Barcelona (RCDE Stadium and Camp Nou), Euskadi (San Mamés and Reale Arena), and València, plus three other venues to be agreed upon.
It will be the first large-scale event involving the CSD and the Spanish Olympic Committee, the promoters of the ADO scholarships to help and promote Spanish Olympic athletes. For years, the subsidy system has needed a reformulation. The initial idea of ??the program consisting of a mixed public-private system in which companies sponsored athletes in exchange for tax breaks has become obsolete, so given the fall in sponsorships and the contribution from RTVE, the CSD had to leave to finance aid (via money from football television contracts).
Spain, one of the world’s sporting powers, will have the challenge of surpassing the 17 medals from Tokyo and Rio (the ceiling is the 22 from Barcelona’92). One of the challenges, beyond the metal harvest, will be the parity of the delegation: 314 athletes attended Tokyo, 183 men and 131 women, a proportion that could be improved. Women contributed 37% of the medals, although they participated in 6 of the 11 gold and silver medals. At the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, women contributed 9 of the 17 medals of the Spanish delegation.
The F League, the First Women’s Soccer Division, achieved its status as a professional competition in a turbulent 2022 after a long process of recognition, negotiations, pressure and even a players’ strike. Quite an achievement in Spanish sport, but isolated, since no other women’s league has achieved that status of professionalism, despite having a great specific weight or a long tradition in Spain such as basketball, handball, water polo, hockey or ice hockey leagues. roller skates. In these disciplines amateurism continues to be combined with professionalism, despite the high sporting returns they leave.
One of the pending issues in Spanish sport is the representation of women in management and decision-making bodies, both in clubs and in federations and establishments. In fact, only two Spanish federations of an Olympic nature – basketball and rowing – are chaired by women. The new ministry of Pilar Alegría, with the Sports portfolio, has a first challenge on the table that could affect this disproportion, such as the ministerial order that should regulate elections in the federations in 2024.
In the same sense, one of Alegría’s challenges must be the consolidation of the pact between the CSD, the Spanish Football Federation and the members of the national team following the scandal of the Rubiales case. A controversy that should make us rethink the vertical relationships and inequalities that still exist.
One of the first decisions that Alegría will have to make immediately will be that of the head of the CSD, currently Víctor Francos, who replaced José Manuel Franco in the regional and municipal elections of May 23.
