Sara Björk stopped playing football in her career for two reasons: the rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in her knee and a pregnancy. After the first one he played again; With the second he ended up denouncing his club, Olympique Lyon.
Gabino Sánchez Llamazares wrote a book, home football (La Moderna, 2024), in which a bunch of surprising stories pass through the scanner, some very well known (the Williams brothers, Zamora, Puskas, Modric or Kubala) and others, not so much. All substantial, few modern (pregnancy has become fashionable lately, when it was discovered how human beings reproduce, that is, with the inclusion of women in the world of work) like that of Sara Björk.
International with Finland, Sara Björk is the most capped Icelandic player and in 2020 she signed for Olympique Lyon. Two months later he became European champion by beating Wolfsburg: he scored a goal in the final. In 2021, she announced her pregnancy with Icelandic international Árni Vilhjálmsson. He had doubts: how would this affect his career? But I wanted to become a mother. “I had the recent example of Alex Morgan, who became pregnant in 2019, the year in which she would have won her second World Cup, which would have allowed her to come third in the Ballon d’Or voting, and who after becoming a mother continued her football career,” writes Sánchez Llamazares.
Failed example. If before, much earlier, pregnancy was a Russian roulette with respect to the survival of the mother and the child, now it is with respect to the professional career of the mother. She was allowed to train in Iceland every day until she was eight months pregnant, with her family and a doctor who spoke her native language. But he started not receiving his salary anymore. Rather, he received a quarter.
Why? Attention: the French National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP) asked Olympique Lyonnais in writing why the salary for those months had not been paid in full. The club did not respond to this request, as it had not responded to its player.
Vincent Ponsot, Olympique’s general manager, later apologized “for two months I didn’t get paid and said they would pay me. But from the third month they would adhere to French law, which meant they didn’t owe me anything else,” Björk said. Why?, again. Because they would follow sick leave rules instead of FIFA maternity rules: she was not entitled to receive her full salary during her pregnancy and the start of maternity leave. To wit: Olympique Lyon had reduced Sara’s salary, violating FIFA’s employment guidelines on maternity. Then Björk and her agent informed the club that they would report them to this body. And the club reacted: “If Sara goes to FIFA with this, she has no future at Lyon.”
He returned to the city with his son, introducing him naturally into his daily life despite the club’s perplexities or opposition, despite the joy and good humor he aroused among his teammates. Meanwhile, FIFA ruled in favor of the player and censured Olympique’s behavior not only for having drastically cut her salary, but for never having taken an interest in her pregnancy, neither as an “employee nor as a human being”. He left the club.
In an ideal world, Ragnar Frank Árnason, son of Sara Björk, is 17 years old, he is the best promise in world football, he grew up in Lyon and Olympique is crazy about the idea of signing him.
