Women's football in Argentina has struggled to find a mainstream audience. While women's football clubs have existed in Argentina for decades, only in 1991 a group of clubs was allowed into the AFA (Argentina Football Association). Initially seven teams, the country saw the number of clubs with female teams rising to 35 in 1998, and then steadily plummet due to lack of interest.
Many women face prejudice and stigma for playing the game.
The first recorded women's football match in Argentina was played on 13 October 1923 at Estadio Ministro Brin y Senguel, then Boca Juniors' stadium. Teams were named Argentinas and Cosmopolitas and 6,000 spectators attended. Argentinas won 4–3Un libro para repensar el fútbol femenino by Angel Berlanga on Página/12, 10 November 2019 Chronicles of the match were published by newspapers La Vanguardia and Crítica.¡Qué jugadora! Un siglo de fútbol femenino en la Argentina by Ayelén Pujol – Editorial Ariel, June 2019 –
Despite those first attempts, women's football in Argentina would not be recognized until the 1990s.
Evelina Cabrera founded the "Asociación Femenina de Fútbol Argentino" (AFFAR) (Argentinian Women's Football Association) in 2013.
History Cultural biases Cultural prejudices against football as a women's activity are not unique to the country and have been present practically since the sport began. During the Victorian era, when the organization of modern football began in England, the only sporting activities that were considered appropriate for women were those that could be practiced in a skirt and corset, and if possible in private settings. Thus, female participation achieved a better acceptance in sports such as tennis, golf, cricket or hockey, but in the case of football, which already attracted great public attention at that time and also required a wide freedom of movement and freedom of movement. especially on the legs, there wasn't much room for tolerance. Women's football was involved in controversial issues of the time such as the reform of clothing, sexuality, the concept of women and feminine freedoms.
Another common argument to disqualify women's football was the possible risks that the practice of this sport could have for the reproductive capacity of women, all this within the framework of a culture that awarded them motherhood as the fulfillment of their lives. With the same argument, it was that women's football was banned in 1921 in England and in 1940 in Brazil.
First records
The first female football match played in Argentina of which there is a record occurred on 13 October 1923 in the Boca Juniors Stadium between two teams called "Argentinas" and "Cosmopolitas". Approximately 6,000 people attended the meeting. The newspapers La Vanguardia and Crítica published news about the event. In addition, the American historians Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel found an article in the Fray Mocho magazine with photographs of women's teams identified as members of the first club of women's football, called Río de la Plata , in Buenos Aires that same year.Fútbol femenino. Una historia de cien años que hasta ahora nadie había contado at La Nación, 30 May 2019 At that time, on the international scene, women's football had acquired a unprecedented popularity. Some years earlier in England the Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C. had become the country's biggest sporting attraction, and in France a national championship was opened in 1919 and ran until 1939.
1950s The first records mentioned above and the scarce news from this decade, there is a gap in history that has yet to be completed. The coach Bettina Stagñares has two photographs, circa 1950s, showing women playing football. One of them was her mother: Nélida Zulma "Beba" González. Lucila Sandoval, founder of the Pioneras project, an organization dedicated to rebuilding and disseminating the history of women's football in Argentina, he mentioned in an interview a newspaper clipping from 1956 as the oldest record he currently has in his archive.
In 1959 the magazine "Goles" dedicated a prominent place on its cover to a football match between women. Inside the copy, the note entitled "They play, argue and get to each other like men" was entitled "The woman invades football" and gave an account of a benefit match on the Tigre between a team from Barrio Parque de Ingeniero Maschwitz and another from club San Justo de Benavídez. The title of the note alluded to certain altercations that occurred between the players.
It was approximately at the end of this decade that several of the players who would stand out in the following years began their training, those that Sandoval calls "the first generation of pioneers."
1960s In the 1960s, several women's football matches were played between clubs. There is a filmic record of a match played in 1964 at the Tigre court, and a year later a match between Club Atlético Tigre and the Alberdi Cultural Center was played on the Students' field, which featured a notable attendance of the public and a collection of $300,200. Tigre was considered one of the best women's teams of the time and five of the players who participated in the 1971 World Cup in Mexico emerged from its ranks: Gloria "Betty" García, Blanca Brúccoli, Eva Lembessi, Zulma Gómez and Zunilda Troncoso. Alberdi's team had started in 1964 and two months before the match against Tigre he had held an exhibition match on the Belgrano de Coronel Moldes court with a collection of $61,800. Mercedes Luna, who was nicknamed "Pelé", was the main figure of Alberdi's team.
An international match was played at least as early as 1962, at Estadio Belvedere against Uruguay.
1970s At the beginning of the 1970s, only a few institutions in the city of Buenos Aires accepted female football players: among the available options were the clubs Piraña, Excursionistas, University and All Boys. Simultaneously, in other parts of the country, exhibition matches and tours of women's teams were held, which were organized by businessmen who charged for entry. Informality was such that a delegation unofficial players represented Argentina in the 1971 Women's World Cup. In 2019, 21 August was designated as Footballers' Day in commemoration of the four goals scored by Elba Selva in the match against England during the tournament. In 1978 a month-long metropolitan tournament that was won by Racing Club. Some of the participating teams, in addition to the already mentioned champion, were Yupanqui, Excursionistas, Minué was a team without a club that in the 1980s he would join Yupanqui. and San Fernando. On the Racing team there were three players who had been World Cup players in 1971: Gloria "Betty" García, Marta Soler and Virginia Cattaneo. The playing conditions were generally precarious: sometimes they played on dirt pitches, sometimes the improvisation of goals was required and most of the footballers wore shoes, except for the World Cup players, who had been given boots.
1980s Between 1985 and 1986, the Ladies Subcommittee of the Independent Club San Alberto de Ituzaingó organized a series of championships and friendly matches for women's football. One of the most widely publicized matches was the one played in April 1986 by the women's teams from Independiente San Alberto and Defensores de Lomas de Zamora as a preliminary to the men's match between Deportivo Morón and Argentino.
In 1986, with Doña Tota, mother of Diego Maradona, as godmother of honor, the Argentine Association of Women's Football (AAFF) was created, founded and chaired by Evelina Cabrera and much more creation recent, in 2013. independent group of AFA that would organize championships metropolitans and that, despite its amateur nature, it would even finance trips to play international matches.
Nils Altuna was the president and main promoter of the association. The local tournaments were called Femigol and Yupanqui was the champion and great dominator of them until 1991, in which the AFA championships began and in which the AAFF disappeared as an institution independent as it is absorbed by the official organization.
Amateur from AFA In the mid-1980s, FIFA had determined to promote women's football and as part of that process in 1991 the first World Cup Women in China and the first South American Women's Championship in Brazil.
It was within this framework that on 27 October 1991, the first official women's football tournament in Argentina began organized by AFA, known as the Campeonato de Fútbol Femenino (Women's Football Championship). This tournament had the participation of eight teams and the winner was River Plate.
The second edition of the tournament was won by Boca Juniors and then River achieved a run of five consecutive championships. River Plate was Coco Torres, who at the same time served as technical director of the Argentina women's national football team that played its first official match in 1993 .
In 1997, there was a notable increase in the number of clubs registered for the tournament, from only nine teams that had participated in the previous edition, the figure increased to twenty-two. At that time the most prominent matches were broadcast by the TV channel Siempre Mujer,Siempre Mujer festeja cinco años, 1 Sep 1997 with former goalkeeper Sergio Goycochea officiating as commentator.
In 2000, a South American club championship was held in Peru with the participation of two Argentine teams: River Plate and Banfield. Although it was not an official tournament, several South American champion teams participated in it and could be considered a precedent of what would later become the Copa Libertadores Femenina.
River Plate and Boca Juniors alternated first place in the local competition for 17 years. It was not until 2008 that San Lorenzo broke that dominance, also qualifying for the first edition of the Copa Libertadores Femenina.
In 2011 the participation of clubs that are not directly affiliated with the Argentine Football Association was allowed and in 2015 the Primera B Championship (Second Division) started.
Professionalistation Macarena Sánchez, a footballer for UAI Urquiza, was the main promoter of the project for the professionalization and visibility of Argentine women's football. She had problems with the leadership after expressing her opinion of a fairer treatment for female football players and has received threats through social networks.
On 16 March 2019, the professionalization of women's football in Argentina was made official. A minimum of 8 footballers hired per club and a salary of fifteen thousand pesos (equivalent to a male First C contract) was defined. Magalí Moreno, footballer from Lanús, gave his opinion on the matter: "The contribution of the AFA will improve our income, in order to train and dedicate ourselves more, but I doubt that we can live with 13 thousand pesos. In the morning I work four hours in a consortium administration and in the afternoon I am a nanny, after that I am going to train. "
Recent developments In recent years, UAI Urquiza has grown as one of the benchmarks in Argentine women's football, being on a par with Boca Juniors and River Plate in terms of tournaments won and players summoned to the selection. Other clubs such as Racing, Gimnasia y Esgrima LP, San Lorenzo, Talleres, Platense and Independiente have contributed on several occasions footballers to those selected from all categories.
As of 2022, no club indirectly affiliated with the AFA has been able to participate in official tournaments. No Argentine team managed to reach the final of the Copa Libertadores and there is still a marked difference between the clubs based in Buenos Aires (especially Boca and River) and clubs based elsewhere in the country.
The Pioneras del Fútbol Femenino association, founded by Lucila Sandoval, is one of the main organisations promoting women's football in Argentina.