For the first time, a player from the French women’s football team was able to go to the selection with her baby. A device hailed on franceinfo Wednesday by the Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games Amélie-Oudéa Castera. She believes that this must also apply to the men’s selections.
“There is no reason for it to be more for women than for men”, underlined the Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra on Wednesday April 12 on franceinfo, while for the first time, the players of the French women’s team can come to the selection with their babies, which has notably allowed the Lyonnaise Amel Majri to participate in the internship at Clairefontaine with her nine-month-old daughter. The arrangement thus provides for a nanny to accompany the French delegation wherever it goes.
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The minister said she was in favor of players from the French men’s team also being able to come with their babies. “I wanted it to also benefit young dads when, for example, it is necessary to have additional funding, specific costs related to childcare”she explained. “I think we live in a moment and in an era where we should not think that it is reserved for women”, she continued. The Minister announced that she was going to present a detailed action plan on Thursday on the “promotion of women’s football” in the company of the interim president of the French Football Federation (FFF) Philippe Diallo and Jean-Michel Aulas, an influential member of the executive committee.
Support for athletes in their maternity
“I come from a sport, tennis, where all this already existsdeveloped the Minister of Sports, on Grand Slams you have nursery services with babysitters that benefit families as a whole”. “Dads can also feel that they miss their child and on a long tour, they need to find them, to be with the family”she explained.
Amélie Oudéa-Castera reiterated her desire to better support sportswomen in their maternity. At the beginning of March, she presented measures to improve the situation of young sports parents such as the adoption of a “parenthood criteria” in the aid criteria of the National Sports Agency (ANS) or the extension from one to two years on the registration of the list of high-level athletes for “leave time” Women’s. “I am very active on this subject to try that our mothers in sport no longer suffer constraints that are unjustified, that there is good fairness in the sports regulations and that there are facilities around them, a serenity that allows them to fully experience their motherhood without giving up their passion and their excellence”said.
Asked also about the new outfits of the Bleues for the 2023 World Cup, with in particular shorts adapted to menstruation, the minister sees it “a nice symbolic progress”. No more white shorts, the tricolors will now evolve with blue shorts. “We are going forward”, welcomed the minister. Now we need “a broader approach” and train coaches “on this subject of menstrual cycles” And “progress on everything that is the optimization of the form of our athletes in relation to the hormonal profiles they present”she added.