Football’s worldwide governing body, FIFA, has announced moves to give women in football greater maternity rights as well as enhanced protection against discrimination during pregnancy.
The proposed reforms, which will need to be ratified by the governing body’s final meeting of the year, should ensure that women players and coaches in the game receive a minimum of 14 weeks’ annual maternity leave, although it is worth noting that many women are already entitled to lengthier periods of maternity leave by the employment laws of their home countries.
FIFA announced that the proposals would be based on the International Labour Organisation’s guidelines so should ensure that women on maternity leave receive two-thirds of their salary. Furthermore, clubs will be prevented from terminating the contracts of players and coaches who become pregnant. Clubs will additionally be required to sensitively “reintegrate” staff once they return from their periods of maternity leave.
However, the move will have little impact In the UK where new mothers are already entitled to 39 weeks statutory maternity pay at a rate of 90% salary for the first six weeks followed by an additional 33 weeks of whichever is lower of £151.20 per week or 90% of average weekly earnings.
FIFA’s chief legal and compliance officer, Emilio Garcia Silvero said that clubs who break the new maternity rights rules would receive a fine and a sporting sanction as well as a possible transfer ban. Players whose rights are not upheld will be entitled to significant sums of compensation.
Garcia Silvero acknowledged that although the new rules will not make any difference to players and coaches in some countries, it was an important step towards ensuring that there is at least some baseline protection for the 211 different territories currently covered by FIFA.
Once the regulations receive approval from the FIFA Council they will come into force from January 2021.
Additional measures included in the pregnancy and maternity rights proposals include the following:
It is hoped that the moves will lead to more women players starting families as well as enabling more players to stay in the game once they have had children. In a 2017 survey by Fifpro, 47% of women players said they would end their careers early to have children because of inadequate support from the game.
Fifpro general secretary Jonas Baer-Hoffmann commented, “The players were pushing for these improvements and it is good to see that FIFA listened to the voice of the players.”