These are programmatic measures, but promise to revolutionize sport in Portugal if implemented and, one way or another, commit the government to a sensitive issue such as gender equality in sport. Starting with “adequate proportionality” in fees and prizes awarded to male and female athletes representing Portugal. For example, the idea is to pay Dolores Silva and Cristiano Ronaldo the same from 2029.
On August 4, 2022, following a directive agreed by the Member States of the European Union, the government set up a working group on gender equality policy in sport, under the auspices of the Deputy Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Ana Catarina Mendes. Among the 15 measures presented yesterday at a ceremony in Alfândega do Porto are the support of motherhood for top athletes and the increase of women in leadership positions, as reported by DN a few days ago.
The recommendation of the working group coordinated by Leila Marques, Vice-President of the Portuguese Paralympic Committee, aims to match or at least approach the values disseminated or attributed by the presence in national selections by men and women, as well as the prizes awarded at sporting events organized by public utility entities or relying on public funding, paving the way for said equality.
The issue of equal pay between men and women in elite sports, and in soccer in particular, put women’s soccer at the forefront of the battle when the U.S. national team took it to court. Process that eventually lost. As early as 2023, Wales agreed to match payments, as is already happening with England and Scotland. Spain, Brazil, Australia and Norway are also implementing this measure.
In Portugal, the Portuguese Football Federation has made gender equality one of its priorities until 2030. “We are very committed to this cause and have included in our plan for this decade – the Football 2030 plan, which is already underway – several projects that will help us achieve the goals proposed in the report. Our reality has changed a lot in over the last 10 years with the investment, almost 50 million euros, that we have made in women’s football,” said Fernando Gomes yesterday, remembering that there have never been so many federated soccer, futsal and beach soccer players (13,239), so many leagues and so many selections.
The government and the Assembly of the Republic now have the floor.
Look at the numbers and see
In the decade from 2010 to 2020, female sports participation grew by an average of 3527 athletes per year. If there were 128,805 female athletes in 2010, there will be 164,075 in 2020. Which means Portugal has won 35,270 female athletes in ten years, an increase greater than that of men (30,109), according to data provided to DN by the Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth.
Despite this great growth, parity is still a dirty word. Portugal has only 140 Olympic athletes and five medalists – Rosa Mota, Fernanda Ribeiro, Vanessa Fernandes, Telma Monteiro and Patrícia Mamona. Of the 28 Olympic medals, five are gold and two of them are women: Rosa Mota (marathon, 1988) and Fernanda Ribeiro (10,000 meters, 1996). At the next Olympic Games Paris 2024 there will be an equal number of male and female practitioners, in the so-called parity games.
From post-pregnancy support to quotas for managers
To protect female practitioners and prevent them from falling out of competition, the working group proposes introducing “a financial subsidy of 100% after the end of the 120 days of maternity leave” for the recovery of physical fitness to a level that is inherent to the high performance, which must be ensured between this year and 2025. According to the working group, this is a time of “greater difficulty in reconciling private, family and professional life”, making “the obstacles faced by women more visible”.
The state should also try to increase the percentage of women in sports training, proposing for this purpose that women take free grade I coaching courses, in addition to having a reserve of enrollment places available in relation to the other levels. Clubs and federations with more than 10 registered coaches must have a maximum 20% share of women in these registrations, rising to 33.3% from 2029.
Women are still a long way from leadership positions, and according to work by DN, only one of 33 sports federations ever Olympically led by a woman will be led by a woman in 2021: Sandra Monteiro (baseball), who has since left office. Now the government wants to propose that from 2024 the quota of women should not be less than 20% in any entity related to sport i.e. Sports Anonymous Societies which will increase to 40% till 2029. sport should be more than 40 by 2026 % amounts.
To combat gender violence as a problem that affects society and sport as a whole, in particular girls and women, the group proposes, among other things, to create effective reporting mechanisms and promote mandatory training for all sports agents who work directly with children and young people people and top athletes.
Source: DN
