“We are not men less capables”: negotiations and claims in spanish womens football

Abstract

This article aimed to reconstitute the narrative of Women’s football Union of Spain (Asociación Española de Jugadoras de Fútbol, AEJF), analizing the way that the union mobilizes and articulates claims of equality and difference in Spanish women’s football. In order to do that, we selected articles retrieved from union’s webpage and a semi-structured interview was conducted with the General Secretariat of the Union. The narrative was analyzed in thematic categories: claims for equality, visibility and respect to differences, further interpreted based on Nancy Fraser’s frame of recognition and redistribution. We showed that this narrative emphasized two issues: the necessity of changing the current discourses on women’s football, aiming to respect its particular features, and the urgency of recourses redistribution, a pathway to social justice on Professional football in Spain.