Emma Rodríguez is 12 years old and started kicking the ball at three. On Sunday, in the first celebration of the Argentine Soccer Player’s Day, he had to watch the game of his team from the Club Deportivo Employees de Comercio, from Guaminí, province of Buenos Aires, behind the fence because Since she is a woman, the Regional League of Coronel Suárez, which organizes local tournaments, does not register her, that is, it does not allow her to compete in a mixed soccer team. Emma is the only girl in her category – but there are others in the club – and she has been playing with boys since she was 7 years old, when she entered the little school. His mom and dad They filed a discrimination complaint with INADI.
“What happens with Emma poses a problem for the girls of all the small towns,” he told Page 12 the Minister of Women, Gender Policies and Sexual Diversity of Buenos Aires, Estela Díaz: from the provincial government they are accompanying the complaint of the girl and her family to find a solution. “This claim has to be heard, it is not an isolated case and there is no response. Beyond the fact that the regulation should be reversed, it is very important that there are formative divisions in women’s football, which is one of the main things missing for the tournament to be professional ”, he warned Maca Sanchez, player of San Lorenzo, president of the National Institute of Youth and who impulse -with a labor lawsuit in court- the professionalization of women’s football.
“We consider that it is a discriminatory act because there cannot be a regulation that is on the right of a girl to play and practice the sport that she loves so much. She is not allowed to sign just because she is a girl. We know that there are leagues that are more flexible and we demand that ”, Emma’s mother, Soraya Ciacchia García, told this newspaper. Guaminí, located in the western center of the province, has around 3,000 inhabitants.
Excuses and solutions
The president of the Regional League of Coronel Suárez, Ernesto Palenzona, blames the AFA “which establishes that there is no mixed football in competitive categories,” claimed the leader. But in other small towns, where there is a children’s women’s tournament because girls’ teams are not formed, the local leagues –as Emma’s mother points out– They have the autonomy to resolve “contingencies” and they contemplate this type of situation. The Alvearense Football League did it days ago, in Mendoza, which allowed another girl – Eleonora Giunchi, who turns 8 this Sunday – to be part of a mixed squad of Sport Club Argentino, to be able to participate in the championship of her category . They are going to sign her these days. “Hopefully this example will help other leagues also give girls the opportunity when there is no women’s team,” Eleonora’s mother, Renata García, told this newspaper, who appeared in the Mendoza media with the same claim at the beginning of August and soon a local leader, who heard her on a radio, enabled the solution: “It is a matter of common sense, they cannot be prevented from practicing a sport because they are women,” she stressed. “The Madariaga and Bahía Blanca leagues also include 12 and even 14-year-old girls in teams with boys,” Emma’s mother found out.
The issue seems like common sense. But prejudices still persist and above all, soccer leaders who are reluctant to see girls kicking the ball. “We are talking about the game. I am concerned that a competitive sports organization ‘regulates’ training activity, ”Marta Antúnez, a specialist in gender and sports, alerts this newspaper.
“You have to think about solutions. They are problems that appear every two by three in different leagues and with increasing frequency because more and more girls play soccer. The lack of girls’ lower divisions in clubs should be on the AFA’s priority list and structure for the development of a soccer player. What happens is that small players are not accommodated, there is no capacity to receive them ”, considered, when consulted by this newspaper, the DT and former player Mónica Santino, a feminist football reference and creator of La Nuestra, experience that promotes this sport among girls in Villa 31, in the city of Buenos Aires.
“The country’s leagues, the same ones that are flexible and contemplative in a lot of situations that refer to men’s soccer, those same leagues say no to girls who want to sign by taking the outdated and stale regulation out of the drawer to stick with it”, Soraya Ciacchia García questions. And he gives examples: he points out that the same League of Coronel Suárez that does not sign his daughter because she is a woman, turns a blind eye to the court measurements that do not become regulation and has just resolved that instead of five changes per game in children’s tournaments, there are no limits “for all” children to play, except – paradoxically – a girl.
For Emma and for all
To resolve the underlying issue and not just the claim of their daughter, the family launched a form in networks to gather signatures. He also opened an Instagram profile called @dejenjugaraemma, where the girl can be seen playing at different times in her childhood. There are two photos that show her at age 7, on a birthday: “As the sandals were uncomfortable to play ball, she played barefoot, on her feet,” says the post. “Sometimes she would bring a bag with her sneakers or booties to meet them so she could change them if she had boots or shoes,” said her mother.
Another photo is from one of his first soccer games. “In the two photos Emma is happy, because playing makes her happy, but above all she is happy behind the soccer ball,” wrote her parents.
The risks of mixed picadito
– Is it risky for girls and boys to play together in the lower divisions? –This newspaper asked Mónica Santino.
–It is not dangerous at all for boys and girls to play together. For our generations, the oldest, the vast majority learned to play soccer spontaneously in paddocks and on the street, in another social context, with men, and we learned to play like that, when no one asked you questions. The problem is when we grow up and our bodies change and men’s gaze on our bodies changes. There it is a painful instance because the childish game that was given in complete freedom is being lost. It is crazy that already entered the 21st century we do not have a basis for these things not to happen.
– What is the message of the AFA when these types of situations occur?
– The AFA always runs after what happens socially. It was a long fight so that in the Ezeiza field where the National Team trains there will be a women’s wardrobe. Another very long fight has been the almost professionalization, with all the debts that it still has, and as of last weekend the televising of all the matches of the women’s championship, which is done through Public TV and Depor TV, state channels .
The AFA created a Gender Equity Department in November 2019. This newspaper tried to consult those responsible but did not receive a response.
“I think that little by little the AFA, like many other associations or entities, are hearing these claims and I hope they resolve in such a way that there are no more Emmas, that everyone has the right to play soccer, because precisely the sport has no gender and everyone has the right to play it ”, considered Maca Sánchez.
“Sports machismo comes into play, without any return, aggravated by being the men’s sport par excellence in these latitudes. “Babes don’t play soccer,” it still resonates and also known arguments ad nauseam such as that they can hurt them until if they are less, it is that they are not interested and what is not said is that there is a fear that they may be better than the children, ”says Antúnez.
In 2017, another girl named Juana, also made a claim similar to that of Emma and other girls. He played for the Mercedes Club. Today he is 16 years old and is part of the River reserve.
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