Thirteen days before the agreement that governs the working conditions of Spain’s top-flight women footballers expires, the negotiation of its replacement hasn’t even been able to begin: there’s no bargaining table in place and a court case in the way. Here it is in five questions.
What exactly expires on 30 June?
The second Liga F collective agreement, the legal framework that has set the salaries and working conditions of First Division players since 2023. Its expiry doesn’t mean the players are left without an agreement overnight: because it was formally denounced within the required notice period, it enters ultraactividad — it stays in force while the next one is negotiated. But the clock is ticking, and the starting point isn’t a good one.
Why is the negotiation in court?
Because the unions can’t even agree on who sits down to negotiate. On 3 June, elections were held to make up the banco social — the players’ representation at the table — and AFE won comfortably: 177 of 208 valid votes, 85.10%, against FUTPRO’s 28 and Futbolistas ON’s 1.
That same day, FUTPRO, Futbolistas ON and CCOO challenged the process at the National Court. Their argument: that AFE organised the elections “unilaterally, without the consent or participation of the other trade unions” and without an agreed set of electoral rules, and that no vote was held in several clubs’ dressing rooms. AFE responds that the process was “entirely legal, transparent and democratic.” The result: by mid-June, the third agreement’s bargaining table still isn’t constituted.
How much does a top-flight player earn today?
The guaranteed minimum salary in force in 2025/26 is €23,500 gross a year. The €28,000 figure that sometimes circulates is a ceiling conditional on certain variable payments being triggered — tied to commercial revenue and to events that, according to public documentation, don’t appear to have taken place — not an automatic step up. In fact, there’s no record of that variable being activated in any season of the agreement. To picture the real floor: according to figures cited in the press, around 130 of the roughly 370 registered players earn less than €23,000.
What is AFE asking for in the third agreement?
Its list of demands, made public in March, goes well beyond pay. It calls for a wage guarantee fund against unpaid salaries; maternity improvements (childcare support and a pregnancy protocol with pre- and post-natal care); health measures (a minimum 72 hours’ rest between matches, a multi-week pre-season, a doctor on away trips, a psychologist at every club); a negotiated fixture calendar rather than one imposed by the employers’ side; and recognition of dual careers and high-performance-athlete status, among other things.
One important nuance: part of what’s being demanded is already on paper. Lactation rooms, childcare at training and matches, and specialist pregnancy staff have been in articles 42 to 45 of the second agreement since 2023. The problem isn’t that they’re missing from the text, but that there’s no evidence they’ve been applied: as telling as anything is that FUTPRO itself set up its own “maternity grants” in September 2025 to cover childcare and carers — precisely what the agreement already obliges clubs to pay for.
And what does the league say?
Little. Liga F — which re-elected Beatriz Álvarez as president through to 2030 — has issued no traceable statement on the agreement’s denunciation or the union dispute. Its silence is, in itself, part of the story: thirteen days from expiry, the body that should be sitting across from the players hasn’t publicly said how it intends to do so, all of this in the midst of the debate over the ‘Gasol Effect’ and the multimillion-dollar offer to manage its commercial rights.
As of 17 June, the situation remains stuck at the same point: there is no record of a National Court ruling on the challenge, nor of the bargaining table being constituted. The clock is ticking; the negotiation isn’t.
Follow-up to the Convenio situation piece. Figures verified against primary sources (the BOE official gazette, AFE and FUTPRO statements, the Liga F website) and dated press; compiled in the June 2026 newsroom dossier.
