MADRID, 23 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Association of Spanish Soccer Players (AFE) has once again claimed this Thursday the “permanent” presence of the F League matches in La Quiniela, given the “lack of commitment” for “implementing equality in football and in society in general “, according to a statement.
“In a week in which the First Division suffers a break due to the commitments of the different national teams, the Association of Spanish Soccer Players wants to claim again the permanent presence of women’s League F matches in La Quiniela,” said AFE.
The organization states that in this week of international break, different national team matches do appear on the ticket, such as Croatia-Wales, England-Ukraine, Luxembourg-Portugal, Malta-Italy and Spain-Norway, but not from the Women’s First Division. “An absolute lack of commitment to AFE’s demand to implement equality in football and in society in general is once again evident,” the statement lamented.
“AFE led a fair and necessary initiative in August 2019. We launched the #QuinielasEnFemenino campaign, which found a positive response from the different political forces, but ultimately did not find the support of the current Government, in an incomprehensible decision that we already denounced at the time,” the agency added.
And it is that, as the AFE note says, the Culture and Sports Commission of the Congress of Deputies unanimously approved in October 2020 the inclusion of League F matches in La Quiniela. “But months later, the Government’s response to a question formulated in writing by the Popular Parliamentary Group was surprisingly negative,” they expressed from the entity before the “disappointing response” of the Government in May 2021.
Given this, AFE does not want “this just demand to fall into oblivion.” For this reason, he explains that the inclusion of League F matches in La Quiniela would give “greater visibility” to the competition and to the soccer players, as well as it would mean “a source of income that both clubs and soccer players need for the development of a competition that has grown exponentially in recent years, but which continues to need more support for its full consolidation”.
“We still don’t understand, because it doesn’t make any sense, that international matches will appear this week, but not League F matches, something that as representatives of the footballers’ collective we want to denounce in order to establish real equality in today’s society,” he reiterated. AFE, which delves into this issue again, in a month in which International Women’s Day is commemorated.
Therefore, for the organization it is “especially painful” that League F is not given “prominence” and “the female First Division footballers in Spain continue to be underestimated.