The rise of women’s football in recent years is already a reality. The data proves it. In December 2022, the total number of female files in Catalonia was 18,882.
What is less common is that there are clubs that have a structure of only women’s teams. That is the case of Gerunda, a club from Girona that will celebrate its tenth anniversary next April and that dedicates its activity exclusively to women’s football. The entity currently has 150 players between the school, the training teams, the three junior teams, the two children’s teams, three youth teams and one amateur. A high figure considering that, at its foundation, it had only 13 players.
A growth that could be greater, but that, in the opinion of its president, Carles Teixidor, is stagnant, among other things, due to “mismanagement of the facilities” that they share with a men’s soccer club.
Teixidor, who has lived his whole life linked to the world of sports and football in particular, affirms that “they feel little valued by the institutions” and gives as an example that the exploitation rights of the bar as well as the Summer Camp go exclusively to the men’s team. A problem derived from the concession of use of the facilities, which according to the manager, “They have expired for years” and there is no intention of renewing them.
Lack of aid
Teixidor, who was president of Girona between 1993 and 1995, remembers how the idea of the Gerunda came about. A seed that he grew during his time as a coach, when he saw the problems suffered by girls who had to play in men’s teams. Years later, together with two colleagues, he decided to create the Gerunda, which has grown in parallel with the interest in this sport in the female sphere. “The explosion of women’s football on television, fully linked to the women’s team of Fútbol Club Barcelona”, is one of the factors that for Teixidor explain this boom.
In order to continue growing, the president of the Gerunda demands more aid from the institutions. “We believe that the way in which economic aid is distributed must change. to modest clubsand since it is unfeasible to have more facilities, yes, with stricter control, the current ones could be used much more ”, he explains to Sport.