Women’s soccer, a new collective bargaining agreement for the future.

The Official State Gazette published last week the agreement reached for the approval of the second collective bargaining agreement for professional women’s soccer, an agreement that was signed between Liga F and the unions FUTPRO, Futbolistas ON and Comisiones Obreras in what they call a “milestone towards professionalization”. This agreement places Spanish women’s soccer among the most advanced leagues in the world, even ahead of countries such as the USA, England and Germany in many areas. Perhaps one of the most controversial aspects is the non-subscription of this agreement by the AFE and UGT unions.

The agreement represents an important step forward, including substantial improvements in maternity and work-life balance, sexual harassment protocol, increased remuneration for female soccer players, mental health protection, leaves of absence, study grants and training.

New obligations for clubs include the obligation to have nurseries during matches and training sessions until the baby is three years old or to provide breastfeeding rooms in the facilities. From the contractual point of view, if a player becomes pregnant during her last season of her contract, she will have the right to renew her contract with the club for one more year under the same conditions or not renew her contract. Emphasis is also placed on the physical and mental wellbeing for the players’ reincorporation to sports practice after pregnancy, for which La Liga F will make specialized personnel available to the players.

Within the complexity of the negotiation of this collective bargaining agreement, important aspects such as studies and cultural training or outplacement were not left behind, let us not forget that the life of a professional soccer player is short and impacts on the training of the players.

The integrity of the competition has also received special mention, incorporating the commitment to promote active policies for the prevention of match-fixing, illegal betting and any other practice that may be contrary to the purity of the competition.

A training compensation mechanism is incorporated in favor of training clubs. In order to be eligible for training compensation, players must be under 23 years of age and must have played at least two seasons with the club.

The minimum salary for the current season is 22,500 euros gross per season, increasing to 23,500 euros for the 2025/2026 season.

In short, this agreement is an important leap forward in the growth of Spanish women’s soccer, a milestone on which all the negotiating parties should be congratulated for their efforts and responsibility.

And since we are being ambitious in this path of growth of women’s soccer, it would be interesting to study the feasibility of collective bargaining in the women’s 1RFEF, that is, in the second women’s category, where, although it is not a professional competition, there are many notes that define it as such.

It is a category that, with work, could be attractive from the audiovisual and commercial point of view, also promoting a framework that encourages collective bargaining – as has happened in the first men’s federation with the approval last year of the first collective bargaining agreement – thus generating better conditions for clubs and players in this category of women’s soccer.

You can see the publication of the Agreement in the BOE here.