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Women's football in Spain

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Women's football in Spain
Spain at the 2019 World Cup qualifiers
CountrySpain
Governing bodyRoyal Spanish Football Federation
National team(s)Spain
National competitions
Club competitions
International competitions
Champions League
FIFA Women's World Cup (national team)
European Championship (national team)
Olympics (national team)
Audience records
Single match91,648 (for a Spanish club; at a Spanish venue[a])
75,784 (national team[b])
60,739 (domestic league[c])

Women's football in Spain is governed by the Royal Spanish Football Federation. Currently there are two national competitions, the Liga F and the Copa de la Reina – which also feed into the Supercopa de España Femenina – in the professional club involved structure.[4][5] Women's football in Spain historically and currently faces systemic misogyny.[6][7]

History

[edit]

Early history: 1910s–1930s

[edit]

Women's football was recorded as being played in Spain as early as the 1910s.[8] The first known women's football teams in Spain were founded in Barcelona in 1914, inspired by teams playing in England. A small football association, the Spanish Girl's Club, was set up and sponsored two teams, Montserrat and Giralda. They played their first match on 9 June 1914; both teams were initially coached by Jack Greenwell[9]: 315–317  when he was also player-coach of FC Barcelona men's team,[10] and then by Paco Bru. Despite becoming popular and playing well enough that one sports paper said they would soon be able to compete with men's second or youth teams,[11] the teams did not last long. Their fortunes seemed to rest on a planned tour of France to play women's teams there, which was cancelled due to the outbreak of World War I, and Spanish Girl's Club stopped playing. Local newspapers continued to report on the women's teams in England, and suggested that women's football would soon reach Spain, but sportsmen and sport advocates in Spain espoused the belief that it was too dangerous or masculine.[9]: 315–317 

In 1920, there was report of a football match between women's teams in Irun, albeit advertised by the skimpy kits the players would wear, setting the tone for press coverage during the decade.[9]: 317–319  Some women in the 1920s found success playing in men's teams:[12] teenage goalkeeper Irene González competed for minutes with Rodrigo García Vizoso,[13] while Ana Carmona Ruiz dressed as a man to join teams.[14] There was also an international women's match between a French XI and British XI held in Barcelona in 1923, and "one of the most important clubs" in Barcelona started a women's team this year, before Belgian women's teams toured Spain in 1925.[9]: 318–319 [d] However, the press was resistant to women's football: some exhibition games were played but were not treated seriously, and the desire for women's football caused media to make news of how masculine it was, while promoting the new English sport of netball in favour.[9]: 318–319 

The outlook was more positive in the early 1930s, in conjunction with the growth of women's rights in the Second Spanish Republic, seeing high participation of women in sports. Several clubs that played football, among other sports, were founded during the decade, including Club Femení i d'Esports de Barcelona and Sección femenina de Hockey del Athletic Club de Madrid. In 1932, another association was created, this time in Valencia, for women's teams to play each other and develop the sport. It quickly sponsored four professional teams – Levante, España, Atlético and Valencia – which toured Spain and Latin America, while FC Barcelona added Ana María Martínez Sagi, who believed in feminism through sports, to its board of directors in 1934. The arrival of the Spanish Civil War effectively shut women out of football.[9]: 320–321 

Franco dictatorship ban

[edit]
See also: Bans of women's association football

1930s–1970: Active marginalisation

[edit]

Between the 1930s and 1975, during the Franco regime, women were forbidden from playing football.[12][9]: 320–321  The Sección Femenina, a fascist pro-misogyny political advocacy group, was incorporated into the dictatorship during the regime, suppressing women's rights.[15][16] The regime also suppressed lesbians. This ironically encouraged the growth of women's football in Barcelona, as a means of community-building,[16] and several teams thrived;[17][18] by 1970, in Spain, women's football teams were playing unacknowledged competitive matches and reportedly played "extremely well".[19]

As the regime weakened in the late 1960s, women began returning to football across Spain, with the Sección Femenina actively spreading disinformation and officially banning the promotion of anything related to women's football to try and prevent this.[20] Women began practicing athletics in Spain in 1960, when female relatives of male athletes began using the facilities at Montjuïc in Barcelona and, facing pushback, sought legal advice to say that as Barcelona citizens they could use any sports facility in the city; a decade later, Mundo Deportivo wrote that this set a precedent for women to play football, as the ban, something the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) took as a given, was probably not legal. The newspaper suggested that it would be reasonable for women's football to be brought under RFEF control rather than develop at its own pace.[21]

1970–1980: Early prominence

[edit]

Women's football in Spain took on a new popularity from 1969. A decade later, Mundo Deportivo attributed the "launch" of competitive women's football in Spain to the first Fuengirola Trophy in Fuengirola, organised by a liquor company in 1970. The newspaper described women's football as an overnight sensation; like the Fuengirola Trophy, most competitions were supported by advertising money.[22]

There was no institutional support, despite the Spanish Football Federation not having any regulations prohibiting women's football.[22] When UEFA polled its members in 1970, Spain was one of five that declined to provide information on women's football.[21] At the time, there were many women's teams regularly training in Catalonia, where there was publicity, and about 20 in Biscay and Gipuzkoa of the Basque Country, where women's football in Spain was most developed. Women's matches had halves of half an hour.[21] The popularity continued to grow. In 1970, Barcelona Femení played to 60,000 at Camp Nou, in a double-header with the men's team, then to 40,000 in a Barcelona derby match in 1971.[18] The first domestic women's league in Spain was played in 1971–72, featuring teams in Catalonia.[citation needed] Victoria Hernández then became the first female footballer to sign a "professional" contract – one stipulating remuneration per game played – in 1971,[23] and several players were good enough to join teams in other European countries with better-developed women's football culture.[22]

Following the initial growth in prominence, the government department Educación y Descanso [es], which managed recreation, took over the organisation of women's football. Though competition still took place, Catalan women's football under Educación y Descanso was described as "hidden, clandestine, silent." In 1979, there were only six women's football teams in Catalonia – two of which pertained to FC Barcelona, and were the only ones with any tangible support. María Teresa Andreu, the main advocate for women's football in Spain at the time, said that the Catalan Football Federation had indicated support for enfranchising women's football, but were ignored when taking the proposal to Madrid.[22]

Federation recognition: 1980s–

[edit]

The RFEF recognised women's football in 1980,[24] but did not organise their own national league until 1988.[25] In 2019 the Spanish FA committed to spending $20 million in the area of women's football.[26]


National team

[edit]
Main article: Spain women's national football team
Spain with the ball in the 2023 World Cup semifinal against Sweden

The Spain national football team has qualified three times for the FIFA World Cup, for the first time in 2015 and every World Cup since then. They qualified three times for the UEFA European Championship.[27] Prior to winning the 2023 World Cup, the furthest the senior national team reached at international competition was the semi-finals at UEFA Euro 1997.[28][29]

The U-17 national team won the U-17 European Championship in 2010, 2011, 2015, and 2018, as well as becoming champions at the 2018 and 2022 U-17 World Cups, and finalists in the 2014 U-17 World Cup.[30]

The U-19 national team won the UEFA U-19 European Championship in 2004, 2017, 2018, 2022, and 2023.[31]

The U-20 national team were runner-ups at the 2018 U-20 World Cup and then champions at the 2022 U-20 World Cup.

Spain's greatest achievement was winning the 2023 World Cup.[32] Olga Carmona scored the winning goal in the final as captain of the team. Spain became the first women's team to hold three World Cups (senior, under-20, and under-17) simultaneously. Salma Paralluelo played in all three of those tournaments. Spain were also leading goalscorers in the tournament with 18 goals.[33]

Spain became a top 10 team in the FIFA World Rankings for the first time in 2021.[34] Spanish players won all categories of the 2021 UEFA awards, the first time all from one nation. The winners were Alexia Putellas, Sandra Paños, Irene Paredes, and Jennifer Hermoso. In December 2023 after their success in the Nations League, Spain became the number one ranked team in the world.[35]

National competition

[edit]

The first teams and the first informal women's football competitions in Spain emerged in the 1970s, although they were not officially recognized by the Royal Spanish Football Federation until 1980, with the founding of the National Women's Football Committee.[36] The first official national competition was the Copa de la Reina, established in 1983.[37] The women's national league began to dispute the 1988-89 season.[38]

Primera División is the national competition for female football players in Spain.[39]

Below the Primera División, there is a second tier called Primera Federación, where its teams are divided into seven groups.[40] In 2020 Primera Federación teams became full time professionals.[41]

The lower tiers are administered by the regional federations.[40]

Level

League

Professional league

1

Primera División
(Liga F)
16 teams

↓↑ 2 teams

2

Primera Federación
16 teams

↓↑ 4 teams

3

Segunda Federación
32 teams divided into 2 groups

↓↑ 6 teams

4

Primera Nacional
6 groups, 14 teams each

5

Regional leagues

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Barcelona vs Wolfsburg at the Camp Nou on 22 April 2022. The FIFA-recognised world record attendance for any women's football match.[1]
  2. ^ 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup final, in Australia.[2]
  3. ^ Atlético Madrid vs. Barcelona at the Metropolitano Stadium on 17 March 2019. The world record attendance for a women's domestic league match.[3]
  4. ^ Following the England FA ban on women's football, Albert(o) Maluquer, historian of FC Barcelona, agreed with England's assessment that the female constitution could not handle football. However, Maluquer felt he could not object to it "as a result of the creation of a women's team in Barcelona, in one of the most important clubs in the city". (Torrebadella-Flix, 2016. p. 318)

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Barcelona presume récord de asistencia femenil, aunque México tiene uno mayor". ESPN. 22 April 2022. Archived from the original on 23 April 2022.
  2. ^ Pal, Alasdair. "Spain defeat England in final of record-breaking Women's World Cup". Reuters. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
  3. ^ "60.739 espectadores en el Wanda: récord de un partido femenino a nivel de clubes" (in Spanish). Marca. 17 March 2019.
  4. ^ Fonseca, Diego (February 20, 2021). "De la marginación a la élite, 50 años de la selección femenina de fútbol". EL PAÍS.
  5. ^ "El fútbol, la última gran barrera del machismo en el deporte". AS.com. April 24, 2017.
  6. ^ Ibaceta, Alex (2023-08-26). "A revolution 40 years in the making: how the Spanish women's team fought back". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
  7. ^ "Spain's women's soccer team keeps fighting after misogynistic World Cup fiasco". Los Angeles Times. 2023-09-26. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
  8. ^ Giovio, Eleonora (30 May 2019). "Women's World Cup 2019 team guide No 7: Spain". Theguardian.com. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Torrebadella-Flix, Xavier (2016-05-18). "Fútbol en femenino. Notas para la construcción de una historia social del deporte femenino en España, 1900-1936". Investigaciones Feministas (in Spanish). 7 (1): 313–334. doi:10.5209/rev_INFE.2016.v7.n1.52710. ISSN 2171-6080.
  10. ^ "Jack Greenwell (1913-23,1931-33)". FC Barcelona. Retrieved 2023-06-16.
  11. ^ Ortiz, Miguel Ángel (7 March 2018). "Las Spanish Girl's Club". Panenka. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  12. ^ a b O'Riordan, Joanne. "How a 17-year-old girl fought for women's football in Barcelona". The Irish Times. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  13. ^ Cudeiro, Juan L. (17 May 2021). "La mujer que abrió las puertas del fútbol" [The woman who opened the doors of football]. El País. A Coruña. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
  14. ^ "La historia de 'Veleta': la mujer malagueña que se hacía pasar por hombre para jugar al fútbol". eldesmarque.com.
  15. ^ O'Riordan, Joanne. "How a 17-year-old girl fought for women's football in Barcelona". The Irish Times. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  16. ^ a b Alcalde, Maria Dolors Ribalta; Martí, Xavier Pujadas (January 22, 2020). "Women, Football, and Francoism: Lesbians and the Formation of Social Networks through Women's Football in Barcelona, 1970–1979". The International Journal of the History of Sport. 37 (1–2): 94–112. doi:10.1080/09523367.2020.1722646. S2CID 214040923 – via cogentoa.tandfonline.com (Atypon).
  17. ^ "Es commemoren 50 anys del primer partit femení del Barça que es va enfrontar a la UE Centelles" (in Catalan). 25 December 2020.
  18. ^ a b "FC Barcelona Women's Golden Anniversary". FC Barcelona. Retrieved 2023-06-07.
  19. ^ Farreras (21 November 1970). "Señoritas sobre el verde cesped". Mundo Deportivo (in Spanish). p. 7.
  20. ^ Alcalde, Maria Dolors Ribalta; Martí, Xavier Pujadas (January 22, 2020). "Women, Football, and Francoism: Lesbians and the Formation of Social Networks through Women's Football in Barcelona, 1970–1979". The International Journal of the History of Sport. 37 (1–2): 94–112. doi:10.1080/09523367.2020.1722646. S2CID 214040923 – via cogentoa.tandfonline.com (Atypon).
  21. ^ a b c Pardo, Carlos (17 December 1970). "El fútbol, es un deporte para la mujer?". Mundo Deportivo (in Spanish). p. 16.
  22. ^ a b c d Nolla, Santi (26 May 1979). "Actualmente adscrito a Educación y Descanso: El futbol femenino, aislado por la Federación". Mundo Deportivo (in Spanish). p. 14.
  23. ^ Villaescusa, Luis (2021-05-02). ""Nunca viví del fútbol, pero lo di todo por jugar"". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-08-28.
  24. ^ "Serial Fútbol Femenino en MARCA.com | El origen clandestino de la selección". www.marca.com.
  25. ^ "Los primeros pasos del futbol femenino en España | Cuadernos de Fútbol". www.cihefe.es.
  26. ^ "Spanish FA to invest 20 million euros in women's football". Marca.com. 21 June 2019. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  27. ^ "'It's a great day for Spanish women's football'" – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  28. ^ "Los grandes cambios del fútbol femenino a lo largo de los años". March 4, 2019.
  29. ^ RIVAS, ALBERTO (June 20, 2022). "Cinco curiosidades que no sabías de la selección española en las Eurocopas". RTVE.es.
  30. ^ "España, campeona del mundo sub-20 por primera vez en la historia". El Español. August 29, 2022.
  31. ^ Longman, Jeré (June 23, 2019). "For Spain, Investment Pays Off at the World Cup". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
  32. ^ "England beaten by Spain in Women's World Cup final" – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  33. ^ "Spain v England | Final".
  34. ^ "Women's Ranking". www.fifa.com. Retrieved 2024-01-12.
  35. ^ "World Cup champion Spain finally takes top spot in FIFA women's rankings, Canada 10th".
  36. ^ Madu, Zito (May 23, 2019). "Spain and La Liga are showing the world how to support women's soccer". SBNation.com.
  37. ^ Pardillo, Nerea; Fotografía, A. S. (June 11, 2022). "20 hitos del fútbol femenino español". Diario AS.
  38. ^ "Spanish gov't to end 'injustice' in women's game". ESPN.com. March 12, 2021.
  39. ^ Grez, Matias (July 11, 2022). "Women's Euro 2022: With two major injuries, can pre-tournament dark horse Spain still dazzle?". CNN.
  40. ^ a b "La RFEF crea una nueva competición para potenciar el fútbol femenino, la Primera División B" [RFEF creates a new competition for developing the women's football, the Primera División B] (in Spanish). Royal Spanish Football Federation. 24 July 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
  41. ^ "Women's soccer gains professional status in Spain". The Seattle Times. June 10, 2020.
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