The Director of Women and Sports Programs of the CSD asks that sports successes “regardless of gender” be “valued”
MADRID, 31 One. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The director of Women and Sports Programs of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), Natalia Flores, highlighted that “women have been achieved to be present in the representative bodies” of Spanish sports, with 33% in the boards of directors, and asked “to value sporting successes regardless of gender.”
“Today, we have 33% women on boards of directors. In 2014 it was 11%, it has been possible for women to be present on representative bodies, for federations to be aware of the importance of having women on these managerial positions, and female resources have been strengthened in the federations,” said Flores during the Informative Meeting ‘The future is in your hands: sport, equality and inclusion’, held this Monday on the occasion of the Conference on the Future of Europe (COFOE) and organized by EP in collaboration with the European Parliament.
The former soccer player lamented that when she joined the CSD in 2014 “there were hardly any women on the Board of Directors.” “We need women in these management bodies, so it was decided to give extra help so that the federations could have that plus and carry out these actions to improve the presence of women in sport,” she explained.
“If they want to qualify for this aid they have to have three women or 33% of women on the Board of Directors, it was a before and after. The presence of women increased by more than 20%. The CSD made it mandatory in all calls and the federations had to change the chip to integrate women into their governing bodies,” he said about a measure that as of 2019 requires four women in these decision-making bodies or that 40% of its members are women.
Flores believes that the presence of women in these management positions provides “another vision.” “I have been a soccer player, we had a series of problems that the male did not have. My managers did not contemplate small problems that they did not have, we have an empathy that they did not have,” she developed.
VALUE THE SUCCESSES WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE GENRE
“Just as there are great men, why don’t we give those great women that we have an opportunity? We don’t have to put up barriers ourselves, we question whether we are trained. Trained people have to be in leadership positions,” she insisted.
The director of Women and Sports Programs of the CSD participated in this debate whose objective is to encourage citizens to upload their ideas to the CoFoE platform (https://futureu.europa.eu/processes) and thus promote dialogue on the issues that should shape the EU of the future, to provide the vision that exists from the Union.
After her first speech, Natalia Flores, after Rafa Nadal’s triumph in Australia to win his twenty-first ‘Grand Slam’, asked “to value sporting successes regardless of gender”.
“Yesterday Nadal achieved a historic event, but three women did it before. I don’t want to take credit away from Nadal, I want us to be aware that three women did it before in history,” he stressed, referring to the Australian Margaret Court, with 24, the American Serena Williams, with 23, and German Steffi, with 22.
Finally, Flores recalled that the CSD is carrying out “many actions to promote the presence of women in sport.” “Less than a year ago it was approved that the women’s soccer league be professional and now we are in the process of approving the statutes. We are trying to provide the clubs with improvements so that their infrastructures are better. We are trying to find those resources and transfer them to the clubs so that the competition improves”, he concluded.