The unique case of Espanyol that makes it an example for FIFA

Barcelona“There are not enough coaches. Efforts must be redoubled to promote change, expand opportunities, and increase the visibility of women on the benches”. This is how FIFA's General Director of Football, Jill Ellis, argued the new regulation approved a few days ago by the world football governing body: all youth and senior women's clubs and national teams participating in a FIFA competition will have to have a woman as head coach and/or at least one other as assistant.

In the 2023 Women's World Cup, only 12 out of 32 countries had a female coach. And while in Spain it is currently directed by Sonia Bermúdez, succeeding Montse Tomé and Jorge Vilda in the position, in national club football, female representation is even lower. Of the 16 teams competing in the Liga F, only two are coached by women: Granada and Espanyol.

Espanyol breaks the glass ceiling

“In fact, with Sara Monforte and Marta Cubí, Espanyol is the only team that has a coach and a second coach. We also have a doctor, a delegate, a kit manager, and a nutritionist”, proclaims Dolors Ribalta, director of women’s football for the white-and-blue team. “But this doesn’t mean they are there because they are women, mind you, but because they are more than qualified. They have the talent to be there”, she adds. One of Ribalta’s two objectives upon taking office was precisely to bet on “female talent”, which is why, as a rule, there are women in all the staffs of youth football and the first team.

The other objective was to strengthen the “white-and-blue identity”, to preserve the sense of belonging, on the benches and in the offices: “Paula Garrido, the delegate, is a born perica (Espanyol fan). And Sara Monforte, Marta Cubí, Carol Miranda –the sports director– and myself have been Espanyol footballers. The technical secretary is Lara Rabal, one of the players who has won the most titles in the club’s history”, enumerates Ribalta, who played in the women’s Champions League as a white-and-blue player two decades ago, when Espanyol dominated the national scene.

While she was playing, in the mornings she was a physical education teacher and in the afternoons, on days she didn’t train, she studied for a degree in CAFE (Physical Activity and Sports Science). “I had already completed the first two levels of coaching and had to decide whether to do the last one or start CAFE. I asked myself: «How many 20-year-old women are coaching in the First Division?» None. And I chose CAFE”, recalls Ribalta, who often wonders what decision she would have made in a context like the current one.

A pioneer on the benches

“No matter how much you have been a player, it is very difficult to coach at the elite level. Much more so than in men’s football. And if you want to try to make a living from it, you have to sacrifice many things. The other day Sara Monforte explained that at 38 years old she moved back in with her parents, imagine”, explains Titi Camúñez, a periquita legend with almost 50 years of service to the club and the first coach in history with a title in Spain. She obtained her license in 1981, while scoring goals for the blue and whites, coaching the women’s reserve team and, during the day, working in a television factory.

“In classes, I never sat at the front because I was a little embarrassed. But the professors ended up seating me in the front row because I was the only woman,” she says with a smile. “I think Lobo Carrasco was also taking the course, but he didn’t come to class much,” adds Camúñez, who perfectly remembers the day she skipped an exam: “It was for physical preparation and we had to dress in sports clothes, but it turned out there was only one changing room, for men. I told the examiner that I couldn’t change with them and, since I played for Espanyol and was in shape, he passed me.”

“We had to break down doors, especially as players. I had teammates who came in secret because their parents didn’t allow them to play football,” reveals Camúñez, who at 19 was one of the pioneers who were part of the birth of the Espanyol women’s team, winner of the Copa Pernod, considered the genesis of women’s football in Catalonia. They won it against Barça at Camp Nou, in front of 40,000 spectators on March 28, 1971.

That is why the multifaceted Dolors Ribalta, a teacher and researcher on the history of the white-and-blue women’s team, came up with the idea to commemorate the anniversary this Saturday, coinciding with the Liga F match that Espanyol will play against Levante, by inviting to the box all those women who laid the first stone to make the club a benchmark for women’s football, now an example for FIFA.