The international players’ union Fifpro has launched a Return to Play guide to help players, club staff and other football stakeholders better understand and manage pregnancy and the return to playing amid a “fairly barren” research landscape.
The guide takes players from the first steps involved in planning for pregnancy as a professional to a return to high-performance play, with details on regulations, methods of delivery and the impact those can have, the support needed at each stage, and more.
The 48-page document was put together by professional female players and medical experts. Kirsty Elliott-Sale, a professor of female endocrinology and exercise physiology at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Institute of Sport, said: “The research landscape is fairly barren but it’s sort of beginning to pick up some momentum. We’re really grateful for those female athletes who allow us to sort of study them and research them in situ.
“Each pregnancy is different, so we’re going to learn on an individual basis and then hopefully over time have more of a collective response. Sometimes laboratory science isn’t the most appropriate fit for this type of thing. I think what we need to get used to is having clubs and organisations and professional bodies and the players themselves co-design research opportunities in real time.”
Elliot-Sale was part of a medical expert group that also included Dr Pippa Bennett, Rosalyn Cooke, Prof Vincent Gouttebarge and Dr Rita Tomás, who specialise in areas relevant to the postpartum journey. Players such as Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, Crystal Dunn, Cheyna Matthews and Almuth Schult gave input on their experiences of pregnancy and childbirth during their playing careers.
“I think I was probably one of the first soccer players, in the United States anyway, to have a child during my career, so early in my career, too; it was, I think, my second year playing or third year,” said Matthews, who represented Jamaica at the Women’s World Cup and has three sons. “We are seeing more pregnancies. And I’ve had a lot of players coming to me asking questions.”
She welcomed the guide’s launch. “You have so many thoughts, so many ideas: ‘What do I do?’ Having a guide eases the stress, it eases the uncertainty. Sure, there’ll still be some uncertainty and things to work through, but to have this baseline is paramount.”
The US full-back Dunn, who gave birth to her son, Marcel, in the prime of her career at the age of 29 in 2022, said: “The most important thing is having that plan in place so that a female athlete just comes back and all they have to do is follow step by step and feel safe and protected.”
Fifpro’s new director of policy and strategic relations for women’s football, Alex Culvin, said: “Once we reviewed the scientific literature and had a couple of ad hoc conversations with players in our global player council, and players that are familiar to us at Fifpro, it was very clear that in spite of the new maternity regulations and players’ increased likelihood to have children, there was very little guidance and support for players out there, which for us is obviously quite problematic, and even more problematic for players.
“Starting a family is a significant milestone in a player’s life, and one that should be celebrated and supported but many players have felt that this has not been the case for them. Many are returning to elite football stronger, despite a significant lack of standardised guidance, regulation and support, and amid pressure on them to manage their own return to play … This guide can be a valuable resource.”
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Fifpro is also trying to close a loophole in the maternity rules that exists because of the predominance of one-year contracts in women’s football.
“The main point that we need to address now would be the extension of the contract for players whose contract comes to an end during their pregnancy or during the time in which they are enjoying their maternity leave,” said Alexandra Gómez Bruinewoud, the senior legal counsel at Fifpro. She helped draft the first maternity rules, which came into effect in 2021 and were updated in June this year, and advised Gunnarsdóttir in her successful legal case against Lyon over maternity pay.
“The average length of a contract of a professional football player in women’s football is only one year. So, on one hand, we are granting really good benefits and protections in terms of protection in maternity and protection of maternity leave that is being paid, etc, etc. And on the other hand, in practice, if you do not provide for a contract extension, this stays a little bit in the air because you need to become pregnant basically the day after you sign the contract for your rights to actually become effective. So that is not very logical. We have been advocating for the contract extension since day one.
“We keep pushing for this. In every meeting we have regarding this topic, we always bring this to the attention. Unfortunately, we did not get support at this point, from the other stakeholders as well.”