Footballers in Italian women’s top division finally turn professional

Women footballers in Italy’s top flight league are to finally be deemed professional, an “epochal change” that ends years of female players earning capped salaries due to only being recognised as amateur athletes.

The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) said the change to the women’s Serie A league would take effect from 1 July, in time for the start of the new season.

“Today is a big day,” said Gabriele Gravina, the federation’s president. “We’re the first federation in Italy to put this change into effect”.

Umberto Calcagno, who heads up the Italian Footballers’ Association, said the move marked the “start of a new challenge” that will see “the system committed to taking advantage of all the opportunities of this epochal change”.

The women’s Serie A was established in 1968 and for the first two decades players were only refunded travel expenses until their squads came under the remit of FIGC’s National Amateur League, meaning the women could earn a capped salary, albeit on contracts that exempted them from contributions to social benefits such as pensions and healthcare. Unlike their multimillion-euro earning male counterparts, currently the gross salary of women playing for Serie A clubs is limited to €30,000 a year.

FIGC, which has organised the Serie A women’s league since the 2018-2019 season, began the legal process to upgrade their status after coming under increasing pressure following the national team’s success in qualifying for the 2019 Women’s World Cup after a two-decade drought, and in reaching the tournament’s quarter-finals.

“It’s been a long time coming, but finally, it’s happened,” said Elisabetta Vignotto, a celebrated striker who was among Italy’s first female footballers.

Vignotto, now 68, played