The Athletic Club, in the II State Congress of Women and Sport

Athletic Club has participated prominently in the two days of the Second State Congress of Women and Sport, under the slogan “Climbing towards Equality”, organized by the UPV / EHU and the Provincial Council of Biscay in the Bizkaia Aretoa room this Monday and Tuesday, 25th and 26th of February.

Yesterday, the Vice Secretary of the Club María Tato dynamised the round table “The role of sportswomen associations”, in which participated Fe Robles, President of the Committee of Women’s Football of the AFE; Natalia Orive, President of the Association of Women Indoor Football Players (AJFSF); Carmen Ayela, Honorary President of the Association of Women Handball Players (AMBM) and Lucila Pascua, President of the Association of Women Basketball Players (AJUB). The colloquium underlined the importance of associations to ensure the sporting practice and professional development of everyone in a context of full equality. According to Maria Tato, the round table highlighted “the current good health of women’s football” and the possibility of it serving as an “advocate for further progress in equality”.

In the afternoon, the footballer and captain of the first women’s team, Ainhoa Tirapu, and the physical trainer Iraia Iturregi took part in the simultaneous working tables. In the various round tables organized, techniques and athletes analysed the problems of women’s sport, focusing on different proposals that could end up tearing down the walls that take visibility of women’s sports away. In the words of the Athletic Club goalkeeper, Ainhoa Tirapu: “The intention is that within 7 years the situation will be totally opposed. There are still many barriers to break, but this wave is unstoppable, and the equality that until recently seemed like a utopia, in the near future will undoubtedly be part of the reality of women’s sport.”

Today it was the turn of Eli Ibarra and María José Boraita, members of the Athletic Club Foundation, who have presented the lecture, entitled “Development of Women’s Football”.

The first part of her speech has been focused on the evolution of women’s football taking as a reference the match between Athletic Club and Atlético de Madrid Féminas that broke the records of attendance, 48,121 people and that, according to Eli Ibarra, can mark a before and after for the coming years. This match achieved great importance in teams of visibility, something fundamental to continue taking steps in favour of equality of women and men in sport. After the projection of a video about that historic day, the former Athletic Club player and current coach of the Genuine team, with 15 seasons as a red-and-white, has remembered her “impressive sensations” during the match and the satisfaction caused by seeing so many families and girls who came for the first time to San Mamés and lived a memorable experience.

Next, María José Boraita presented the work that the Athletic Club Foundation develops with the aim of giving back to the society part of what Athletic receives. After the projection of a video that summarized the work of each of the social, cultural and sporting projects of the Foundation, she explained in detail one of those projects, called Utopia and dedicated exclusively to women at risk of exclusion.