"I signed the renewal of Claudia Pina with Barça eight months pregnant"

The first time I spoke to Carlota Planas on the phone, I thought I heard a baby crying in the background. I didn't say anything. Ten minutes later, however, I couldn't help but ask her if it was a baby I was hearing. She quickly said yes, laughed, and we continued talking about football. Six months later, sitting in front of me, she explained that she renewed Claudia Pina's contract when she was eight months pregnant. Cata Coll's, a month before.

"I was trying not to show it, but look, look at the renewal photo," she says, laughing. About to close a multi-million euro sale of her company, UniK Sports Management, to THE•TEAM, the former Wasserman group. Carlota was clear: she wouldn't be amused to see a headline linking a pregnant woman to the sale of a company for a multi-million euro offer. "A woman and pregnant, can you imagine?". What a world, the world of football.

"It was too much. In fact, the baby came a month early. He must have been tired of so many calls and so much football!", she says. Cesária. I breathe. Everything turned out well and, for sure, she could rest a bit now. But Carlota finishes it off: "Three weeks after giving birth, I was closing Aïcha Camara's renewal. I gave birth on a Thursday, on Friday they congratulated me and sent gifts, and on Monday they called me and sent emails. I never stopped working." The naturalness and grace with which she explains it reassures anyone.

Carlota Planas is an elite football agent for female players. A pioneer in Spain. She played futsal until she reached the dreaded barrier of women's sport: "I couldn't make a living from futsal." The first player she represented was a young Claudia Pina, only sixteen years old, when the stadiums were practically empty. Ten years later, Planas remembers crying for the first time on a football field: "90,000 people were chanting Pina's name; I get goosebumps just remembering it."

Today she manages a portfolio of about forty players, three of them among the world's elite. She could have more, but she doesn't want to. It's the only way, she says, to offer them what she believes they deserve: time, a lot of time. 

Her biggest mistake? Getting too involved. She explains it while looking at the cappuccino and giving examples. The more she gives, the faster it goes. Curiously, however, her way of understanding the profession involves precisely getting involved: when things get complicated, a player needs to know she has someone by her side and not just someone negotiating contracts. Trust isn't built with a contract, but with consistency. Let's remember Mariona Caldentey's signing for Arsenal, after ten years at Barça. A success. "A good deal is one that makes sense for the player sportingly, personally, and in the long term," she says. Day-to-day life has little to do with the conventional image of a football agent. There are calls, trips, negotiations, meetings, and contracts, but also doctors, surgeries, sponsorships, "I need new boots, advice, and reservations at that restaurant." 

Her ambition, she explains, is born from curiosity and nonconformity. She has always thought that things can be done better and that, if no one opens a path, someone will have to. It seems she has loved blazing the trail. She professionalized, standardized, and organized contracts for players who until then did not have the same guarantees as men's. The professionalization of the Spanish First Division for women would not arrive until 2021.

And in September, when the season starts, does a bit of calm arrive? The question almost makes her laugh. In reality, the work never stops. Perhaps because Carlota Planas also doesn't really know how to stop.