Footballers Unfiltered: How Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir set a precedent for mothers in football

• Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir is the latest guest on Footballers Unfiltered with Joe Hart, a series uncovering the rarely heard side of football
  
  
• The Icelandic midfielder made history by becoming the first player to win a claim against a football club through the FIFA Maternity Regulations
  
  
• FIFPRO provided legal support to Bjork Gunnarsdottir – from explaining her rights to representing her before the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber

Football and motherhood is the focus of the latest Footballers Unfiltered with Joe Hart episode – the series dedicated to the important but little-discussed issues of the beautiful game.

Joining Hart in the latest instalment is former Iceland international Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir, a player involved in the most groundbreaking maternity case in football.

Bjork Gunnarsdottir made history in 2022 by becoming the first player to win a claim against a club through the FIFA Maternity Regulations. The regulations entitled Bjork Gunnarsdottir – now at Saudi club Al Qadsiah – to full payment throughout her pregnancy and until the start of her maternity leave when at former club Olympique Lyonnais.

Bjork Gunnarsdottir’s case demonstrated how important it is to regulate minimums and not leave them to the goodwill of parties, even high-profile football clubs.

"I always wanted a family. My partner Arni and I were in a good place that if it would happen, we would be happy. I was at the top of my career and Lyon was my dream team to go to," Bjork Gunnarsdottir says.

In March 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Bjork Gunnarsdottir agreed with Lyon that she would be returning to Iceland for the remainder of her pregnancy.

"Around 13 players in our team got COVID and at that period, they stopped training. I was also afraid of getting COVID and didn't know how that would affect my pregnancy.

"I left in the beginning of April [2021] not really thinking about what my rights and guarantees were, just thinking I would receive my paycheck for the next month. I saw one month goes by or two months and I didn’t receive my paycheck. I spoke to my team-mates, ‘Did you get your salaries?’ And they said yes. It was then I knew something was not right."

FIFPRO provided legal support to Bjork Gunnarsdottir – from explaining her rights to representing her before the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber. "When we mentioned that we would go to FIFA with this, they told me, ‘If you do that, you have no future here at Lyon'."

The FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber ruled that Bjork Gunnarsdottir was entitled to full payment throughout her pregnancy and until the start of her maternity leave during her time at Olympique Lyonnais.

"It made it very clear for women today that they don't have to choose [between motherhood and football] and they don't have to sacrifice – and that makes me very happy," says Bjork Gunnarsdottir, a two-time Champions League winner.

"We were confident, but it was the first case, so we didn't know how it would go. And then I understood how big that was just for other women, understanding that, yes, I can do both and I will get the support financially, emotionally, and physically. That support from my team-mates and from the club. I'm really proud of that achievement in my career."

"Sara’s story helps create awareness of the protections and help pave the way for others," says Hart.

Pathway to maternity regulations for footballers

In 2017, FIFPRO issued a global report on employment within football that revealed only two percent of female players were mothers and that 47 percent of women footballers had retired early from the game to start a family.

"We looked internationally to see if there was any sport that had regulated maternity at international level, and that was not the case,” says FIFPRO Legal Director Alexandra Gómez Bruinewoud, who joins Bjork Gunnarsdottir on the episode. “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."