The Argentine player Estefania Banini is known as the “female Messi”.
Banini, 33, is a forward for the Atlético Madrid club and captained Argentina in the 2019 World Cup, which was the first time the South American country had participated since 2007. He then assisted his team when they scored their first points in the group stage with a couple of draws.
But Banini’s push for gender equality in Argentina cost her since she hasn’t been called up to play for the national team for almost three years.
At the start of the World Cup in 2019, Banini was very critical of the Argentina coaching team, their training methods as she felt they were not what they should be. Later, Argentina’s coach, Carlos Borello, responded to her and others who added criticism of her, leaving them out of the 2019 Pan American Games, forcing Banini to make the criticism of her public through an Instagram post. .
“They punished us by not allowing us to play for the national team for three years,” Banini said on the NBC and Telemundo podcast “Mi Mundialista Favorita.” “Those were very hard times, very sad, because all we wanted was to improve this, to have what we needed to really grow.”
The fight against gender inequality in soccer has been a constant in several countries, including Argentina.
After missing two World Cups in a row, the Argentina women’s soccer team was listed as “inactive” by FIFA in 2015 and did not have a coach in 2016 as it did not have support from the Argentine Soccer Association ( AFA). After Argentina returned after spending time without playing a single match, the players went on strike in 2017 over unsettled payments of $8.50 for each training session and poor infrastructure.
Things weren’t great in the club area either. In 2019, Macarena Sánchez sued her club, UAI Urquiza and the AFA in an attempt to achieve professional status since women’s soccer was an amateur sport in Argentina. UAI Urquiza players, who had several members in the team, did not earn salaries and only received payment of $10 per month for travel and part-time job offers at the club.
Argentine soccer player Estefanía Banini is using her platform to advocate for equality for female soccer players in Latin America.
A month later, the AFA granted professional status to the first division, the highest level of women’s soccer. The decision meant that all 16 clubs had at least eight players on professional contracts. Each team would receive $3,000 a month to divide it among the players with contracts, meaning an income of $375 for each one, the same amount that a fourth division player earns in Argentina.
“The life of a player in Argentina is complicated since she cannot dedicate herself 100% to the profession,” said Banini. “There are some players who earn enough but it is not a reality for all. So it is very difficult since many have to study, they have to work and they have to do other things to be able to train, with little money or little to eat”.
Banini, who played in the US NWSL for the Washington Spirit team from 2015 to 2018, believes that Argentina can learn from the United States. She saw the structure of soccer during her stay in the US that she believes other countries should copy.
“I think they are several years ahead of the game,” Banini said. “Schools support football on a very professional level. The truth is that they give football an impressive value and it is something that we must admire. And it’s not just football, it’s any sport. So I think it’s something that should be done in Latin America.”
The USA also eliminated the difference in salaries in the national teams. In February 2022, the women’s soccer team agreed to pay $24 million in a lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation. Months later, the US Soccer Federation, the USWNT and the USMNT reached a historic agreement for equal pay for both teams.
“It seems very important to me that soccer teams start to do something about the difference in salaries,” Banini said. “And why not in South America too? But I believe that there must be other previous steps that selected others and other countries must take ”.
After Germán Portanova became Argentina’s coach, Banini was called up to the national team and made her official return in April 2022. In retrospect, Banini believes her criticism of the women’s national team in 2019 had a positive effect.
“I always try to bring out the positive and I think it worked,” he said. “It worked for Argentina to have a change and so that today we can grow under a new team of coaches.”
As Banini prepares for what will be her last World Cup, she has seen positives in the fight for gender equality. The public record was broken in April when almost 32,000 spectators watched the friendly against Venezuela. And Banini says that some members of the men’s team, world champion, have shown their support and have begun to meet the members of the women’s team.
However, Banini says that Argentina is far from where it should be,
“I would love to experience gender equality because it is my country and I want to live that reality,” she said. “But I think that there is still a long way to go before generating that opportunity for the athletes, that they can dedicate themselves 100% to soccer, so that the world can see the potential of Argentina.”
