The belated social inclusion of women in Argentina over the past two decades has awakened women’s football from a nearly century-long lethargy experienced in the shadow of male hegemony in the land of Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona. If the Argentinian women’s team is playing its fourth World Cup in Oceania (July 20 – August 20), it owes it to a long struggle. Movements such as “Ni Una Menos” (not one less) against gender violence or in favor of abortion – legalized in 2020 – have pushed the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) to finally look at football female declared semi-professional in 2019.
Ignored in the country of the triple world champions where the round ball nevertheless occupies all the public space, “women’s football has been able to grow in recent years thanks to the advance of the feminist movement, political, cultural, social and economic transformations, as well as the approval of laws such as marriage for all”, explains Ayelen Pujol, former footballer, feminist, journalist and author of the book “Quelle Joueuse”, during a conference at the Deportea journalism school, in Mar de Plata (northeast). If the first women’s football match in Argentina was played in October 1913, she recalls that it took a century “for the articulation between the social movement in the streets and (the recognition) of female footballers on the pitch”.
But the visibility of women in football in Argentina is not limited to the pitch. Never had they been so numerous to fill the stands of the stadiums of the men’s championship, and they celebrated as much as the men the victory in December of the band to Leo Messi in Qatar. The women’s national team, which begins its World Cup in New Zealand and Australia on July 24 against Italy, has certainly never galvanized the crowds after three appearances in 2003, 2007 and 2019 without the slightest victory in the key. But the vast majority of supporters have only just learned that Mexico 1986 was not the first time that an Albiceleste team beat England in the World Cup thanks to a “hand of God” and a “goal from the century” signed Diego Maradona (2-1).
In 1971, during a Women’s World Cup not organized by FIFA but by private companies, in the same Azteca stadium in front of 100,000 spectators, the Argentines were the first to beat an English selection (4-1), on a quadruple of ‘Elba Selva. “In Mexico, I was praised, but when we came back here, there was no one to welcome us, no one knew anything,” says Elba Selva, 75, today. Women’s football was invisible to the general public, the players were even criticized for being “manly”, according to Ms. Pujol. But in 2006 was finally going to occur a beginning of recognition after the conquest of the championship of South America. The “Pibas con Pelotas” (girls with ball) movement, which brings together women footballers and coaches, complains about the lack of specifically available pitches or even jerseys, the non-existence of professional contracts or medical coverage in the event of of injury. And the lack of will to promote women’s sport at school. They consider themselves “mistreated” and consider “their rights not respected”.
In a plea, “Pibas con pelotas” explains the delay of women’s football by “the lack of income for players in clubs to be able to train every day”. “If you get up at 6:00 a.m. and work all day, you won’t be able to turn professional,” says former Boca Juniors midfielder Camila Gomez Ares, today at Universidad de Concepcion, Chile . “When I played for Boca, nobody came to watch us. We played on artificial grass pitches. My jerseys were much too big,” says Julia Paz Dupuy, now a futsal player in Spain. In Oceania, the Albicelestes hope to receive a little popular support. And that finally the victories of the men, with the third star won in Qatar in 2022, can serve as a catalyst for Argentine women’s football.
