In the morning, after nine and a half hours of being closed between four walls and overcoming several moments of great tension, an agreement was finally reached that allowed the second day of the footballers’ strike to be called off. The negotiation was closed with an increase in the minimum salary from the current 16,000 gross annual euros to 21,000 for this season, 22,500 the next and 23,500 the third and last campaign of this new agreement. A figure that can be raised depending on the commercial income registered by the F League.
Almost a third of the total of more than three hundred players competing in League F, a total of 91 footballers, will benefit this year from the increase in the minimum wage to 21,000 euros. Of these players, less than thirty earned the minimum wage, 16,000 euros, and most already enjoy higher salaries. The average salary of female players in League F is around 40,000 euros, 30,000 if we exclude the two clubs with the highest and lowest salaries in the competition.
Since the League became professional last year, both footballers and the clubs themselves understood that salaries had to reflect this new scenario, but it has been very complicated to find a figure that would satisfy both parties. In fact, this agreement does not quite satisfy anyone, but it allows a step forward by ensuring a fairer remuneration for female footballers and guaranteeing the viability of the competition.
The agreement “has been accepted by the players in an exercise of responsibility with the fans of this sport”, explained in a statement the five unions that represent the footballers: Futpro, AFE, Futbolistes ON, CC.OO. and the UGT
For their part, the clubs emphasized the need to reach “a long-term agreement that provides stability to the project of women’s professional football and allows gradual and sustainable growth in line with the development of the competition”. This has been the main concern of the employers’ association, which has denounced more than once the economic “suffocation” to which League F has been subjected by the Federation. Since the competition became professional and left the umbrella of the RFEF, precisely the federative costs skyrocketed. To give just one example, arbitration costs went from 917,200 euros in the 2021-22 season to 3.9 million the previous year. In total, the federative bill is around 30% of the income of the F League, which is also obliged by the Superior Council of Sports to give the Federation 20% of the income per sponsorship.
Faced with this scenario, many months of negotiations have been necessary, which intensified at the beginning of September with the call for a strike and the entry into the mediation of SIMA (Service Interconfederal de Mediació i Arbitratge), which has been decisive in reaching a agreement It has rained a lot since those first proposals in which the employer offered a token increase of 500 euros per year, up to 16,5000, and the unions asked to reach 30,000 after three years. In the last week, after several meetings in which very tense moments were experienced, it was possible to reduce the distance between the two sides, but it was not enough. The SIMA then had to come into play to put a halfway offer on the table (from 21,000 to 23,000 euros in three seasons), but the players did not accept it. 24 hours later, the deal could be unlocked by adding 500 euros to each of the last two seasons.
It is an agreement that only regulates the minimum wage, “the main cause of the strike”, the unions explain, and which will allow the season to finally start this weekend after the first day of the League was suspended due to the strike. Now, the social bank and the employer will have to sit down to negotiate the rest of the matters of the collective agreement. The two parties have reiterated more than once that they agree to end the partial contracts, but there are other important aspects related to maternity, a protocol for cases of sexual harassment or the controversial list of compensation. This last aspect is one of the great struggles of footballers, who want to avoid the exorbitant clauses that must be paid to sign players under the age of 23 in terms of training rights.
