Soccer players celebrating their goals to their newborn children. Leo Messi honored little Thiago the day after his birth with his name on his boots. Andrés Iniesta dedicated a goal to his daughter Valeria three days after coming into the world. Gerard Piqué did not miss training after the arrival of his children. “I don’t expect that (fatherhood) will mean a change in my professional life,” Rafa Nadal even said. There are few cases of those athletes who have stopped after paternity or maternity – not pregnant -, even less those who have taken leave for birth and care of the minor. One case, David de Gea, who was absent for six games—one month—in 2021, and that Manchester United lived normally; or the golfer Jon Rahm, who took a break from his professional career in 2020 due to his wife’s pregnancy. Sometimes considered “heroes” who, depending on the perspective, are so for accepting their “responsibility” as athletes and other times as parents. Professionals point out that this is a “personal decision” derived from their short careers; But sociologists add that it is also a consequence of the collective imagination about motherhood and fatherhood rooted in society. “Sport is a reflection of what happens, to a certain extent, in society. But it is different: it is not so democratized, it is not so equitable and some things are an anachronism from the past,” shares David Moscoso, professor of Sociology of Sports at the University of Córdoba, and adds that there is an “unequal cultural distribution of roles. between men and women from the first years of childhood.
“In the field of sport, the rule that regulates the relationship between professional athletes is Royal Decree 1006/85. They have a special relationship because they are fixed-term workers and because they can be assigned to workers. But in 1006 there is nothing that regulates the benefit for birth and care of the minor,” says María José López, lawyer and legal co-director of the Association of Footballers in Spain (AFE). And he adds: “As article 21 of 1006 says, the prevailing legislation is the Workers’ Statute. And that means 16 weeks, six mandatory and non-interchangeable weeks.” However, they do not accept it. According to López, this is “a personal issue for the worker and company” and the important thing is to regulate it in 1006 so that the “specificity” of the sport is understood.
Alexander Sorloth was criticized last April for traveling to a game and playing even though his wife was out of debt. His coach, Marcelino García, praised him at a press conference: “His professionalism was received with a goal. He had the possibility of staying with his wife, since he became a father this morning, but he put his professionalism first. I am very happy for him, because he demonstrates some values.” Similar to what happened in 2018 with Sergio Ramos and the birth of his third child; Not even 24 hours had passed since his wife gave birth, and he was already joining La Roja. Julen Lopetegui, then coach, spoke about it: “He made an extraordinary effort to come to train, something that logically he could have skipped. But he hasn’t done it, clearly demonstrating the mentality he has and that, furthermore, we love it.”
“They are seen as heroes who fulfill their obligations. “Aren’t the rest obligations and responsibilities?” Moscoso reflects. But where does this conception come from? “The cultural values of unequal roles that are assigned to the fact of being a man or a woman end up prevailing: the man brings the money home and the woman takes care of the children,” Moscoso specifies. And he adds: “There is a social normalization by which men do not assume reproductive care and this is transferred, even more, to the world of sports. (…) The problem, furthermore, is that it is a masculinized and androgenic structure.”
Beatriz Mañas Ramírez, professor at the Faculty of Sociology of the UNED, through a report from the MADER Project, goes deeper, and assures that everything comes from a “rooted social imaginary about the incompatibility of motherhood with high performance.” This also directly influences the social and family conception of parenthood. “Motherhood is seen as a ‘non-place’ within high-performance professions. Furthermore, the idealization of traditional motherhood continues to pre-exist.” In the results of the MADER project report, high-level athletes view motherhood as the end of their careers, have fear of body “deformity” and have problems with professional demands.
Through interviews with different female professionals, they have observed how they resign more than them. “They give up, it seems like they have no other choice, but they don’t have those needs to give up going to train or to a championship. They observe that they do not go through the process of bodily transformation, for example, and they see that their renunciations are smaller. The high-performance professional career is very short, it has a great demand for mobility, and also at the operational level of life and at the physical level. And let’s not talk about sports that generate big income, like football. As long as this is the case, who is going to resign?” Despite this, fears, to a certain extent, are also shared. “They also have this imaginary about incompatibility: if I’m on sick leave I’ll miss training, I’m not going to return to the same performance… But to the extent that the condition of motherhood is normalized and integrated into high-level sport, it will be much more “It is easy for both men and women to consider family formation as a normal stage of life.”
Saber Competir’s sports psychologist, Raquel Moreno, also specifies the reasons that go through the minds of athletes for not taking advantage of their withdrawals. “There are many doubts in elite sport because fatherhood and motherhood imply more substantial resignations than in other areas of work. They lead a pace of life that we do not consider, and a sick leave implies many changes in their daily lives and routines that can affect recovery,” says the psychologist. The problem, too, is the “expectations”: “An external and internal pressure is generated that they will not return to the same level.” He emphasizes, however, that it is a “own decision” and that of a “couple.” Moreno also emphasizes the short duration of their careers, like María José López. “There are athletes who have month-long contracts. They are very short careers, and that determines everything. This specificity must be taken into account and valued, so we should regulate these aspects in 1006, taking into account the reality of this activity,” shares the lawyer.
Few cases are those that benefit from it, like De Gea. Also the then goalkeeper of the Córdoba World Heritage Site, Cristian Ramos, who in 2023 stopped for six weeks due to paternity. Javi Sánchez was also absent from a match between Espanyol and Valladolid due to the birth of his son. Jose Rojo Martin Pacheta He had to face questions and criticism at a press conference. “If they let you see the birth of a child, there is nothing more to that in life. Here we win, we lose, but the birth of life, that has no discussion. He doesn’t have it. “The boy has to go.” Similar to the answer given by coach Sarunas Jasikevicius regarding the paternity absence of Zalgiris’ Brazilian center, Augusto Lima, in the Lithuanian league semifinal in 2017: “Do you have children? When you have them, you will understand. It is the best experience a human being can have. Do you think basketball is the most important thing in life? (…) Being a father is the best thing in the world, no titles or anything.”
It also reaches the level of coaches. As is the case of María Pry. The current sports director of the women’s Betis was a mother – not a surrogate – with her partner in 2023 when she was the first coach of the Madrid CFF. She had extremely premature triplets, due to her weeks and weight. “We told the club that we wanted to be mothers. It was a situation of giving it normality, of mutual respect and sincerity. They never reproached me for anything: maximum respect from the players and unconditional help from the club,” she confesses. “I did have colleagues who told me why I was taking leave, what was going to happen to the team—which continued to work wonderfully—but others gave me their unconditional help. “I felt valued and respected,” she adds. Pry emphasizes that the key was to give it “maximum naturalness and normality,” and that the circumstances are “very personal.” “I am not a better person or coach because I took the leave. I understood that I had to do it,” he emphasizes.
Mañas explains that “there is a lack of social awareness about parity in society,” but it is true that a difference is beginning to be noticed in the new generations. For her, it is essential to “demystify the traditional idealization of the mother.” However, there is still more to be done. “Cultural changes are very slow,” Moscoso laments. But, above all, athletes do not want to be heroes or heroines. The voices asked agree that it is their right to decide about their paternity and maternity. “What is changing in the world of sport is that we are increasingly treated as people,” says Pry.
