Direito, Gestão e Esporte

By Higor maffei Bellini

I do not consider it correct to use the word “discipline” as a synonym for women’s football. This is not merely a linguistic preference or a discussion about the most elegant way to write. The words chosen to identify an activity help shape how it will be understood and, consequently, how it will be treated by society, businesses and the law.

Men’s football and women’s football are not two different sporting disciplines. There is only one game of football, as I always emphasize whenever I have the opportunity. The essential rules, the field, the ball, the objectives, and the very nature of the activity are the same. The only distinction lies in the gender of those who play it. Therefore, when it is stated—as frequently occurs in the Brazilian press—that women compete in another “discipline,” an artificial separation is created within the sport itself. This may have concrete consequences that are unfavorable to women working in football.

If these activities are regarded as different, it becomes easier to argue that the investments, structures, salaries, and rights offered by the same club to employees working with its men’s and women’s teams should also be different. Language then helps construct an apparently neutral justification for unequal treatment concerning rights and protections.

This issue does not affect athletes alone. A football club employs coaches, fitness trainers, physiotherapists, doctors, analysts, supervisors, press officers and several administrative professionals. When football played by women is treated as a separate sporting discipline, room is created for professionals who perform similar duties for the same employer to receive different treatment simply because they are connected to the women’s team.

Obviously, recognising that there is only one game of football does not mean arguing that all employees of a club must receive exactly the same salary. Brazilian law allows differences in remuneration based on objective criteria, such as duties, productivity, technical quality, experience, and responsibility. In the specific case of athletes, individual characteristics, sporting performance, commercial profile, and contractual conditions may also make an automatic comparison difficult.

What cannot be accepted is that the workers’ gender or their connection to the women’s team should, on its own, be used to justify inferior pay and working conditions. Such inferior treatment may include the use of different sporting equipment, training at less favourable times and being excluded from the clubs’ social media coverage.

The Brazilian Federal Constitution establishes equality between men and women and prohibits differences in salaries, duties and hiring criteria based on sex. Brazil’s Consolidation of Labour Laws provides that work of equal value must receive equal pay, without distinction based on sex, and regulates equal-pay claims in Article 461. Federal Law No. 14,611/2023 strengthened equal pay and equal remuneration criteria between women and men. Federal Law No. 9,029/1995, in turn, prohibits discriminatory practices regarding access to and continuation of employment.

This means that not every salary difference will necessarily be unlawful. However, it also means that the club must be able to demonstrate objective and legally legitimate criteria to explain that difference. Merely stating that a particular employee works “with the women’s team” does not constitute a sufficient justification when it is understood that there is no separate women’s discipline: it is all football.

Therefore, changing the way women are treated also begins with the language we use. As long as we treat football played by women as a separate activity, we will help preserve the idea that it may receive less investment, inferior structures and reduced rights.

There is no separate sporting discipline called women’s football and another called men’s football. There is football, played by men or by women. Understanding this is a necessary step towards ensuring that differences are no longer presumed and that inequalities must instead be properly explained.