FIFA's Maternity Benefits For Female Players Enforced By Football Tribunal (Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir v Lyon)
Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir (“Sara”) captain of the Icelandic national football team and Juventus player, recently secured a landmark victory for female footballers. In May 2022, a FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (“DRC”) panel (part of the FIFA Football Tribunal (“FFT”)) ordered her then club, Olympique Lyonnais (“Lyon”) in France to pay her unpaid salaries of more than €82,000 (£72,000) as a consequence of back dated maternity pay in a decision which has been recently made public. Post the decision being made public, Sara also wrote about her side of the story in an article for the Players Tribune[1].
In what has been described as a “wake-up call for all clubs”, this landmark case saw FIFA’s regulations take precedence over French law and helps guarantee the rights of female football players during pregnancy.
This article looks at the background and facts of the dispute, FIFA’s new maternity policy, and how this was utilised by Sara to achieve her stunning victory.
The decision of the DRC can be viewed in full here.
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- Tags: Athlete Welfare | Dispute Resolution | FIFA | FIFA Regulation On Status And Transfer of Players | FIFA RSTP | Football | France | Iceland | Italy | Maternity Benefits | Regulation & Governance | Sport | Women's Football
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Written by
David Winnie
David is a Senior Associate and head of the Sports team at Blaser Mills Law. He has been practising exclusively in the field of sports law for over 11 years and deals with all aspects of sports, acting for individuals and organisations across the full spectrum of contentious and non-contentious matters in the sports sector.
He has acted for clients in relation to a wide variety of arbitral and disciplinary proceedings in several forums including the Football Association (FA) Rule K, the English Football League (EFL) Player Related Disciplinary Commission, EFL Appeals Committee, as well as FIFA’s DRC and the Court of Arbitration for Sport ((CAS) in Lausanne.
Manan Agrawal
LawInSport
Manan is currently an Editor at LawInSport. Before joining LawInSport, Manan practiced law at a leading media and entertainment law firm in Mumbai, India. Manan has been a part of LawInSport's inaugural Academy Mentoring Scheme and was mentored by LawInSport CEO and Founder, Sean Cottrell.
Sean Cottrell
Sean is the founder and CEO of LawInSport. Founded in 2010, LawInSport has become the "go to sports law website" for sports lawyers and sports executives across the world.