FIFPro has introduced a comprehensive ‘Return to Play’ guide aimed at aiding players, club staff, and other football stakeholders in navigating pregnancy and the subsequent return to professional play.
The 48-page Postpartum Return to Play Guide was created by a dedicated task force of female players who have navigated pregnancy and childbirth during their careers, including Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir, Crystal Dunn, Cheyna Matthews, and Almuth Schult.
FIFPRO’s Director of Policy and Strategic Relations for Women’s football, Dr. Alex Culvin, remarked, “For such a varied and complex subject matter, there is very little accessible guidance for players to follow – an issue that we hope this guide can begin to remedy.”
“For most professional players, their prime performance years will overlap significantly with their peak window of fertility. As a result, players will continue to seek to start a family during their playing careers with the desire to then return to their work.”
This 48-page guide, crafted by a team of professional female players and medical experts, outlines everything from initial pregnancy planning to returning to high-performance levels, covering regulations, delivery methods, and necessary support at each stage.
The guide’s development involved contributions from notable experts like Kirsty Elliott-Sale, a professor of female endocrinology and exercise physiology at Manchester Metropolitan University, who highlighted the evolving research landscape.
“The research landscape is fairly barren but it’s beginning to pick up. We’re really grateful for those female athletes who allow us to study them and research them in situ,” said Elliott-Sale.
She emphasized that while individual experiences vary, there’s hope for a more collective understanding as research progresses.
Input from players like Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, Crystal Dunn, Cheyna Matthews, and Almuth Schult added valuable real-life perspectives on managing pregnancy and childbirth during their careers.
Matthews, who was one of the first football players in the U.S. to have a child during her career, shared her experiences, “I was probably one of the first soccer players, in the United States anyway, to have a child during my career, so early in my career. It was, I think, my second year playing or third year.” She welcomed the guide, stating, “You have so many thoughts, so many ideas: ‘What do I do?’ Having a guide eases the stress, it eases the uncertainty.”
US full-back Dunn, who returned to play after giving birth to her son Marcel in 2022, also praised the guide, “The most important thing is having that plan in place so that a female athlete just comes back and all they have to do is follow step by step and feel safe and protected.”
FIFPro’s new Director of Policy and Strategic Relations for Women’s football, Alex Culvin, noted the need for such guidance, “Once we reviewed the scientific literature and had a couple of ad hoc conversations with players in our global player council, and players that are familiar to us at FIFPro, it was very clear that in spite of the new maternity regulations and players’ increased likelihood to have children, there was very little guidance and support for players out there, which, for us, is quite problematic and even more problematic for players.”
Culvin added that starting a family should be celebrated and supported, despite existing challenges in standardized guidance and support.
Additionally, FIFPro is addressing a gap in maternity rules related to short-term contracts in women’s football.
Alexandra Gómez Bruinewoud, FIFPro’s senior legal counsel, highlighted this issue, stating, “The main point that we need to address now would be the extension of the contract for players whose contract comes to an end during their pregnancy or during the time in which they are enjoying their maternity leave.”
Gómez Bruinewoud, who helped draft the initial maternity rules and advised Gunnarsdóttir in her legal case against Lyon, pointed out that the standard one-year contract often leaves players’ rights in limbo.
She continued, “We keep pushing for this. In every meeting we have regarding this topic, we always bring this to the attention. Unfortunately, we did not get support at this point from the other stakeholders as well.”
