World Players Association launches Best Practice Guidance for Maternity and Parental Policies in Sport

• The guide is designed to serve as a practical tool for player associations seeking to develop, improve, or negotiate maternity and parental policies for their members
  
  
• It draws on international minimum standards established by the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention
  
  
• FIFPRO last year launched the Postpartum Return to Play Guide to help professional footballers better understand and manage pregnancy and the phase after childbirth

The World Players Association (WPA) has released Best Practice Guidance for Maternity and Parental Policies in Sport, a landmark initiative designed to ensure athlete-parents are empowered to thrive both on and off the field.

The guide, which can be accessed HERE, is designed to serve as a practical tool for player associations seeking to develop, improve, or negotiate maternity and parental policies for their members.

Best Practice Guidance for Maternity and Parental Policies in Sport is based on five core pillars:

1. Pregnancy/Prenatal
2. Parental Leave
3. Return to Play
4. Childcare
5. Women’s Health

It draws on international minimum standards established by the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention as well as the pioneering maternity protections in FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP) that was first introduced for footballers in 2021 after pressure from FIFPRO.

"As women’s participation in professional sport continues to grow, gender equity remains an aspirational goal rather than a reality. Athletes around the world continue to face outdated structures, poor protections, and systemic barriers to balancing careers and family life," the WPA said in a statement. "Despite FIFA’s 2021 introduction of minimum maternity standards, few other international sport governing bodies have followed suit."

The road to maternity regulations in football

FIFPRO issued a global report on employment within football in 2017 that revealed 47 percent of women footballers had retired early from the game to start a family. It also highlighted how only two percent of female players were mothers and that just eight percent of that group received maternity pay.

"We looked internationally to see if there was any sport that had regulated maternity at international level, and that was not the case,” said FIFPRO Legal Director Alexandra Gómez Bruinewoud, speaking last week on FIFPRO’s Football Unfiltered series.

“We prepared a policy from FIFPRO with all the maternity regulations as we wanted them, and we presented this document to FIFA, and this ended up being the basis of the regulations."