With the phone in his hand and the backpack on his back. Amanda Gutiérrez (Barcelona, 1991) appears in the EL PERIÓDICO editorial office hours after achieving a historic agreement for women’s football. The president of FUTPRO, the majority union, recognizes the hardness of the last few days. Marathon meetings, discussions and assemblies. She, despite being one of the leaders of change in this sport (although she does not consider herself as such) is still the same as she was when years ago she put on her boots to go out on the grass. She now defends the rights of soccer players in the offices, but she has not lost the essence of a “normal person.”
Why has it taken so long to reach an agreement?
Due to the little information that has been revealed throughout the negotiation by the League. We have had to call a strike and go to SIMA (Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service) for two weeks to find out how many players were between 20,000 and 23,000 euros. This lack of transparency has not helped the parties and has tired everyone. Once again we are the players who lower our expectations for the common good, to be able to continue advancing. But there is still a lot of agreement to negotiate.
How do you value it?
It’s been hard. The agreement, we are not going to lie, is not what any of the five unions expected. We started with a proposal of 25,000 euros minimum salary for this season and we have ended up with 21,000.
What has been the League’s role in the negotiation?
When we look at the figures it is obvious that there is money. It is also true that when the F League explains to us how it distributes it, that is when you draw other conclusions. Of 42 million commercial assets, they distribute 200,000 to each club each year, which in the end is about 16 million. From 16 million to 42, what is happening? The money does not reach the clubs. If you do not nourish your clubs with economic resources, they will drown. Furthermore, there are also those who consider that with 16,000 euros [las jugadoras] They are well paid. And then… When you have an argument like that and the unions have others, you also clash.
Will increasing salaries make the league more professional?
No.
Missing?
A lot of things. In the end, it is not only the salary, but also what allows a soccer player to be full time and be able to dedicate 100% to this. But there are many other things. One of the great demands that footballers make of us are the fields, the facilities. We have footballers with ‘broken’ knees from training on artificial grass fields. How are we going to put on a show in a field where, when you want to broadcast it on television, the angle is not correct? There are another series of circumstances to improve and, of course, in matters of maternity and sexual harassment.
Has the conflict with the Federation affected the negotiation and the footballers when making a decision?
Yes, it is a very tense situation. In the end, before the first day of the strike we issued the FUTPRO statement, signed by 80 footballers and in which they resigned from the national team until there are no changes in the Federation. This movement has been supported by all the players in League F, and even in other categories. It is true that it has led to the discussion of the collective agreement. It has been a movement. Soccer players have created a movement. The ‘it’s over’ is not only for the Federation, it is for the entire infrastructure of the entire sport, of football.
There are more cases, less visible, but they do not make this an exception.
We don’t want this to be customized. What happened at the World Cup medal ceremony is not an isolated event. [cuando el presidente de la Federación, Luis Rubiales, besó en los labios a Jenni Hermoso sin su consentimiento]. We have cases in the F League that are very similar and there are labor inspection resolutions in which workplace harassment is accredited. That gesture was the straw that broke a camel’s back that had been on the verge of spilling for some time.
He doesn’t like us touching noses, especially when we are women.
And it was necessary to win the World Cup to change everything.
Unfortunately, female athletes have to win big prizes to cause profound social changes. It happened in the United States and it is happening here. It has been winning a World Cup, stealing our moment and taking advantage of it to make structural changes everywhere. It feels like women’s football is breaking up. But what I say is: ‘It’s not breaking, they’re taking off masks.’ We are a generation that has had to live this moment. I tell the footballers, when we have a moment of ‘I can’t take it anymore’, that as a generation we have had to live through this. But it is for those who come, and for them to have it easier.
You were in the Sydney stadium at the time of Luis Rubiales’ kiss to Jenni Hermoso. Did she see it?
I didn’t see it at the time. I didn’t find out what had happened until I was at the airport. In fact, the first thing I saw was the ‘meme’ comparing Iker Casillas’ kiss [con Sara Carbonero en el Mundial de Sudáfrica] and that of Rubiales. I thought it was a photo taken at the wrong angle. When I was able to see the video, I said to myself: ‘What is this?’ I put my hands on my head and, after the Alhama case [donde las futbolistas denunciaron acoso laboral por parte de su entrenador]I was already very clear about the identification: this was an abuse of power.
In Spain it was very difficult to identify as such.
I was surprised that it took so long for people to understand that this was wrong. It once again demonstrates that it is a structural problem, of society. It seems that it is not understood that a man cannot do whatever he wants with a woman’s body. You can not. And even more so if you also hold a position of responsibility. But it doesn’t matter that he’s not a man. I am president of an institution and many of the players are friends of mine. I would never think of doing something like that. Never.
What was it like helping Jenni through the process?
With her everything has been very simple. We have never pressured her. We wanted if she made the decision to speak, to prepare everything well. Always trying to make her comfortable, to make the decisions about what she wanted or didn’t want to do. But, even so, it has been hard, because she puts the focus on the victim. And because a series of social, legal behaviors or actions are required of her, placing all responsibility on her shoulders. That’s something I’ve always wanted to take away. The images are very clear. Jenni doesn’t need to talk. We should have enough mechanisms so that she would not have had to go to that extreme. Both Jenni and FUTPRO have received a lot of pressure, a lot of comments, a lot of manipulations and attempts to discredit. But she is strong. And I have thought about it many times. If it had happened to another player of the 23, I don’t know what would have happened.
Have the measures taken regarding Rubiales been sufficient?
An external institution like FIFA had to come to protect our player. Something that I hope and wish does not happen again, because I believe that in Spain we should have the appropriate mechanisms so that this does not happen. They have taken our colors as a country and we have made a fool of ourselves worldwide for not being able to protect a player when everyone had seen what had happened.
For the first time, the footballers made a joint statement.
It was a bit crazy. After the assembly in which we all expected a resignation to occur [de Rubiales], the first thing we did was talk to each other. We concluded that she was insulting all women. I started getting calls from all the players saying: ‘What do we do?’ It is very difficult in such a large group to go all together. And seeing how, at that moment, we all did it was very nice. When I talk about all of them, I’m not talking about 23 footballers, I’m also talking about those who were on the pre-list, about those who were part of the group of ‘the 15’ who in the end did not go to the World Cup, about those from the World Cup in Canada. We also talk about the pioneers. And that’s what Jenni did.
The ‘it’s over’ is not only for the Federation, but for a sports structure
There they said enough in a demand that will mark the history of Spanish sport forever.
It was something very nice. It was a demonstration: ‘What we have been asking for for so long, and for which we have been called brats, cannot be consented to. And we are all at one, now that there are no media or institutions separating us.’ It’s something that has been happening for a long time. It is always said, divide and conquer. And the footballers have played a lot to divide them.
As a result of the letter, the Federation was forced to take action.
There were movements within the Federation, but no communications occurred until the moment in which there were a series of internal changes, which they themselves have recognized as still insufficient. They have transferred these changes to the players and now it is up to them to decide if that is enough to return and continue with the changes. I think the answer is ‘no’. But it is also true that we have been there for about 12 days and we must understand that a scabby structure that smells like mothballs does not change in such a short time.
Right now she is one of the leaders of this movement. How have you adapted to such a big change that involves many things?
Well, let’s see, I don’t consider myself the leader of anything. That’s for starters [ríe]. It has been very hard. We started from the fact that I was a lawyer for many of these players and they asked me to create a union because they wanted their own. I assume this position because they trust me. That’s a big burden to begin with. But then I wasn’t aware of it either when I accepted it. Here I was a little stupid for thinking that everything would be simpler. I believed that we were already in an era in which if a woman asked you for things, they would not consider her a little girl.
It has been attacked from all sides.
I have been insulted and misrepresented. FUTPRO has been the only institution that has managed to make money [a las organizaciones] to give it to the soccer players. And yet, the conclusion is that I am a sellout. First they said that I was from the men’s league and Javier Tebas had created me. Then it turns out I’m from the Federation. When they sell you that discourse that there always has to be a man behind a woman, it frustrates you. Do people really not believe that this was created by the soccer players and that every decision that is made is made by them and not me?
I have no dirty laundry, despite the coercion and attempts to interfere in my private life.
They have ‘hacked’ Jenni’s phone and they have also attacked you looking for dirt.
When we spoke with Yolanda Díaz, Minister of Labor, following what happened with Jenni, there were attempts at manipulation, coercion and interference in my private life to obtain data. That part made me more amused, because the press is used to there being leaders who have things under the rug. And the only thing I have under the rug is that I like Harry Potter. I am a new player in this world, I have no dirty laundry. I do not have it. I manage this on a personal level, because I have no other choice. FUTPRO comes as something new that is really touching everyone’s noses, both the F League and the Federation or the CSD. And I don’t like that. And even less so when we are a team of women who are saying things clearly. We talk and act, and we don’t like that. There are many people who get in the way a lot.
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Is it very hard to manage cases like those in Alhama or what happened to Jenni?
A lot because, apart from everything, I am a woman. I saw my Alhama players what they suffered. And I suffered with them. We would talk for hours and hours on the phone and of course, they would vent to me. And obviously I was delighted, but I felt helpless. And the same with Jenni. The same. It frustrates me to think that we created this union to try to change things, and there are things that we cannot change. We need women allies and allies, feminists, in the infrastructures that surround football. Nothing would frustrate me more than feeling like my hands were tied and that even with a majority union we couldn’t change this structure. I hope, in a few years, to look back and recognize that I was on the right side of history.