In the last days of December of last year, the players and former players of the Rosario Central Women’s Soccer First Division denounced the club and its coach, Roxana Vallejos, for collective harassment and discrimination before the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI), accompanied by AboFem and FutFemProf.
After leaving the club, where he was for more than six years and while looking for a new institution to play in, the central defender Camila Bellavia spoke with 90 minutes about the different situations that they experienced in the last time at the club, the separation of Maira Sánchez due to a supposed kiss with a partner and how the players were organized in the face of this.
What is your reflection on the situations of violence, discrimination and mistreatment that they report and the responses of the club?
Before all this happened, the truth is that I cannot complain about how the club had been managed. They were always attentive. Unlike what can happen in other clubs, we always train with new materials, we had the availability of the field that was achieved over time. When we entered AFA it was a very big step and we went to train at the Ciudad Deportiva, where all the men’s categories train. We occupied a space and it was a very big and very positive change for us to be able to play on the court where the reserve plays.
Up to this point we had received a lot of support, which is why I was very surprised by the lack of support we had in these situations that we raised because it was the first time that we did need activate a protocol against sexual diversity, gender violence and other mistreatment suffered by the players in the club and that we have not had an answer or it has not been activated caught my attention and obviously It left me and all my teammates quite sad, since we thought that we had the support of the club and in the end we did not.
What were the situations of abuse and violence that they reported?
Since last year we lost the first match of the tournament with Huracán, there has been retaliations. The first was to take out our cell phones in training sessions, games, rallies. We had to leave them all in a box as if we were not adults and had responsibility.
Later, another measure that was taken after the game was to leave the players who live in the southern part of the city without transfer, at very great distances from where we train and concentrate. Later, there were other mistreatments that we detailed to Carloni (vice president of Central), which had to do with malicious shouting in the games.
It also happened that some teammates were injured, they did not have the medical discharge to return to play yet and they urged them to train and play games, the same. They told them: “Well, if you don’t want to play, I won’t quote you, we’ll see next week” or “if you have to break up, you break in the game.” And in the desire to play, you go and play but what we felt and wanted with our body was not taken into account. In fact, other colleagues had worsened injuries.
How did they raise this within the club?
We expressed all of this as a group in a meeting where only the players were there, to see what the whole team felt. And after that, well, what is already public knowledge happened: the club fired not only players but also the medical staff, including a kinesiologist, psychologist, nutritionist.
And after this, we first spoke with Ricardo Carloni, and he determined the total cessation of activities until the matter was resolved. Which mattered to me because DT, along with a certain group of players, continued to train in the same way. So we turned to human resources, where we had no response. Then to the Secretary of Gender who told us that the only thing they could do was give training for diversity. But it didn’t serve us, so yeah We expressed to all the lines of the club that we could our inconveniences. But since we had no answers, we had to reach these instances with INADI, which did support us in our case.
Within these adverse situations the group appears, the team, the collective as something fundamental, how do you live it?
I think it was something that cost a lot, more than anything because it is not the same to agree with one or two people than with fifteen and there are still more of us. But hey, for different personal and work reasons, there are some colleagues who prefer not to speak yet or who have not signed their support, but they are. It was something very difficult, but it is also good because a football team is not individual, it is collective. And if out of a squad of 25, like a huge 30 people, including the coaching staff, you have more than half who are demonstrating, there is something. So being able to achieve that makes us feel proud because there were times when we thought this is a lot, added to the bad moments, not knowing what your future is going to do and so on, it was very stressful.
And what happened to Maira Sánchez?
Maira’s thing was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We had gotten together to chat, as I was saying, all the players on a Monday. That day many had been told that he was disengaging them. But not Maira. They told her on Tuesday that they threw her out by institutional order of someone from the club for giving an alleged kiss with a partner, we do not know where because they did not say so. There we can’t take it anymore and on the same Wednesday we spoke with Carloni. This was like: in the XXI century, you get kicked out for a supposed kiss with a partner. We know that she was not dissociated for football reasons, Mai had very good performances, she was a starter in the middle of the tournament and more. Roxana (Vallejos) could tell that she loved her because days before she was dismissed, she had asked to host girls who were going to come to her house for tests. It doesn’t match much.
You are one of the club’s historic players, you were at the institution for more than six years and you decided to leave, how do you feel about that decision and leaving this way?
The truth is I am very sad. They had informed me that I was going to continue, which seemed good to me because I have my studies in Rosario, with the footballer’s salary I pay for the kinesiology degree that in that city is private. For me, this situation of continuity generated economic security and stability, I wanted to renew. But hey, what happened happened, they told me that they were going to contact me to discuss the contractual terms and here we are, still waiting because no one from the club contacted me to tell me if they were going to take me into account or not. So I assumed not. I made the decision on my own and here I am looking for other options, something that I had to plan overnight. All of this was very painful for me because of everything I went through at the club.
What are the moments that you will remember from your time at the club?
The truth is, I have a lot. But the happiest day I remember at Central was the preliminary against Estudiantes in 2018, which led to us going to play at AFA. That day I was turning 18, I had finished high school and I played in the Gigante de Arroyito with the public, in the first men’s preview. All in the same day.
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