"
It's about finally telling my story after getting pregnant in Lyon and the treatment I received during my pregnancy and my return to the field!
In a long text published on Tuesday, former OL player Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, 32, launched a heavy charge against the Rhone club.
A speech which follows the publication by FIFPRO of a court decision dated May 19 and condemning Olympique Lyonnais to pay 82,094 euros to its player for not having paid her during her pregnancy in 2021. Indeed, FIFA has imposed since 2020 to grant paid maternity leave of at least 14 weeks to professional players, in addition to the rights applicable in each country.
OL finally paid what they owed the Icelandic player, FIFA having threatened to ban the club from registering new players if the sum was not paid within 45 days.
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The President didn't even greet me, look at me or recognize Ragnar
Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir
In parallel with the publication of this judgment, the player confided at length about this period to the English site
The Players Tribune
.
She denounces the discrepancy between the public discourse of her former club on the support provided to pregnant players and the way she explains that she was treated.
“
I had no reason to think anything could go wrong.
Until I didn't get my first pay check.
(…) We sent official letters.
When Vincent (Ponsot) finally responded he apologized for two of the missing months and said I would be paid for those.
But for the third month, he said that they applied French law, that is to say that they no longer owed me anything”,
says the player who plays today at Juventus Turin.
After several months of exchanges, and the young mother's stated desire to take legal action, Vincent Ponsot, the general manager of OL, would have replied to his agent
: "If Sara goes to FIFA with that, she won't has no future at all in Lyon
”.
"Calculation"
Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir also explains that she never had contact with the club's management during her pregnancy and after the birth of her child.
On her return, she met Jean-Michel Aulas, currently in the running to take the reins of the future women's professional football league, during a meeting with Vincent Ponsot: "
The president entered the room while I was there .
.
It was the first time he had seen me since I had returned with my baby.
He didn't even greet me, look at me or recognize Ragnar.
But Vincent had just reassured me, five minutes earlier, about the affair, that “it was not personal” (…) and that he was applying French law.
He repeated that it was not personal, but that it was
Former OL player and world star Megan Rapinoe reacted to this affair by denouncing a form of double talk from the Rhone club on women's football: "
You all like to say how much you help women, but this should not not be a calculation.
I implore you to be the club that still supports women, not the club that once did
.”
OL claims to have respected French law
For its part, OL ensures "
to have always respected French law which we have sometimes found too restrictive on these subjects (...) and to have done everything possible to support Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir in her maternity
".
Then to add to explain the reason for the salary delays:
In recent months, FIFA has chosen to lay down for the first time a legal framework for players who have to experience maternity during their career.
What we are happy about.
FIFA is now criticizing us for not having offered another job to Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir during her sick leave and then her maternity leave, while at the same time the law forbids us to do so in France and the player had expressly asked us to to be able to return to live in Iceland, which we had accepted.
»
In fact, this legal framework was created by FIFA on December 14, 2020. It establishes a "
maternity leave of at least 14 weeks granted to a player due to pregnancy, of which at least eight weeks must be taken after the birth of the child
”.
An article 30 of the regulation of the status and the players which has still not been transposed in the last general regulations of the French Football Federation, the latter only hearing the term professional in the male.
