Female football referee strike causes disruption to the sport in Spain

The opening round of Spain’s new professional women’s football league was called off after referees called a strike.

The female referees are demanding professional status and payment in line with the men’s LaLiga, according to MSN.

Teams Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid were amongst those set to feature on Saturday, September 10. in the first season of a fully professional women’s league in Spain

30 minutes after the scheduled kickoff time both teams issued statements saying their respective opening-round fixtures were suspended “due to the non-appearance of the referee team”.

The referees and assistant referees, who had announced a strike on Thursday, September 8, said the league had not addressed their concerns and they would not officiate any top-division fixtures “under the present working and economic conditions”.

“The referees want to provide the best possible service to football and that necessarily means having minimum working conditions comparable to those of the refereeing establishment of the men’s professional competition,” the statement added.

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