International Women’s Day: world’s best footballer Aitana Bonmati calls for ‘lots of changes … there is not equality’
- Bonmati’s 2023 featured World Cup and Champions League success, and the Ballon d’Or Feminin award for the planet’s best player
- But the Spain and Barcelona star says there is much still to achieve off the pitch, urging football ‘to invest in us, and give us the opportunity’
Women’s football “needs a lot of changes” to achieve equality with its men’s counterpart, according to the world’s best player Aitana Bonmati, who said she and her contemporaries were “fighting for everything we deserve”.
Barcelona playmaker Bonmati last year won the Fifa Women’s World Cup with Spain and the Ballon d’Or Feminin, awarded to the planet’s leading star, before last month scoring in the semi-final and final of her country’s Uefa Nations League triumph.
But speaking on the eve of Friday’s International Women’s Day, she told the Post that ambitions such as fighting for Olympic gold this year took second place to a desire to “help women’s football grow”.
“I always say, what I do on the field is important, but what I do off the field is more important,” Bonmati said. “I am in more houses and reach more people, and can help women’s football grow.
“We need a lot of changes, I do not want to say only one thing [must change], because we need to do a lot of things to keep growing. It is better than a few years ago, but there is not equality [with men’s football].”
