Women’s Athletic Club, Zirgari Award 2019

The players Ainhoa Tirapu, Yulema Corres and Ainhoa Moraza, representing the Athletic Club, have received this afternoon, in the section “Empowerment and change of values”, the Zirgari Award 2019 awarded by the Provincial Council and BBK in favor of equality of women and men. The award has been granted ex aequo with the pelotari Patricia Espinar. The gala of the IV Zirgari Awards was held in the BBK Hall and, in addition to the players of the first team, Juan Carlos Ercoreca, president of the Foundation, and the director Jorge Gómez attended.

The jury has awarded Athletic for becoming a reference point for elite and grassroots women’s sports. For having filled the capacity of San Mamés and serving as a model in a sport where visibility is for male teams. For bringing together almost 50,000 different people around the illusion of a women’s football match. For becoming a mirror where the boys and girls of Bizkaia who play football can look at each other.

Before the award ceremony, a small video was projected in which different images of the female Athletic training in Lezama were combined with a voiceover congratulating the lionesses for having reduced gender differences and having made possible a new vision in favour of equality. In the video, several football players and coach Joseba Agirre himself symbolise this change of perspective by wearing purple glasses.

The historian Pilar Perez Fuentes, the volunteer agents of the Tartekari Network against violence towards women and the company IZAR Cutting Tools have been the other candidacies awarded this year with the Zirgari Prizes, which are granted in recognition of the work of people, entities and companies in favour of the equality of women and men in Bizkaia.