Women’s basketball: “Not even water for women” | The Catamarca squad plays the quarterfinals on Sunday in Ferro

Catamarca Basketballthe women’s team that stands firm in the Women’s League, completed the regular phase matches last weekend and secured entry to the Playoffs. On Saturday they defeated the current Berazategui champions 52-43, in what was their fourth consecutive victory. Today they are among the top eight teams in the Women’s National League; on Sunday and Monday they play the quarterfinals in Ferro. It’s the first time that Catamarca He is at the top level of national basketball.

“It means something very nice and rewarding to be able to leave the province at the top of the league, for the support and push they give us day by day. Hopefully we can move forward and position ourselves in a very good place,” Joaquina Gregorio told him. to Catamarca/12.

“Beating the three-time champions has been a great victory for the team. Berazategui lost only twice in three years, and one of them was with our team this Saturday”, affirmed the director of the women’s team, Gonzalo Perez.

But not everything was positive on the path that the girls’ campus had to go through. Despite being successful, the players suffered discrimination in Catamarca of the club in which they initially played, the famous Red Starwith complaints before the INADI in the middle.

Since 2014 the team has been developing a career in women’s basketball in the province, playing the federal tournament with teams from all over the country: “We did it very neatly, at the beginning the physical and sporting differences were noticeable, but we managed to qualify for the Federal Tournament in 2021 in Córdoba. There we played against Obras and Berazategui, and we won the classification to play the National League”, says Pérez.

“When we came back and wanted to continue playing for Red Star, representing the club in tournaments, the new Club committee decided that we could not do it because the club had no funds, when in fact the funds had always been managed by the team, without generating any debt to the club in all the years we were. It was very hard for us because we had been representing Red Star to a greater extent and on two occasions Montmartre in national tournaments that Red Star could not participate in”.

The director, who has been managing the discipline in the province for almost 20 years, recognizes a difference: “Women’s teams must always seek funds from family members, the coaching staff and the players themselves; It’s not the same as the men’s teams that give them everything without even asking.”

Takeoff

“There we decided to take a step apart from the club, personally I feel that it was a clear act of discrimination against women because we never left the club with any debt, and we always left it standing well in sports and institutional matters. At that moment they decided to turn their backs on us and we had to leave the club and ask the Basketball Federation for support so that we could continue playing and not abandon this historic fact of being in the League, which has the highest level of Basketball in Argentina”, he explains. .

The coach assures that “today all the girls who were in the training stage left from that institution to other clubs like Olimpia. Only 20% of the girls’ squad remained. Of six hours of women’s basketball that was in the club today they have only two hours a week. They are all evidence that they do not want to see women’s basketball grow.”

And he regrets: “When we came back from playing dates in the Federal Tournament, they weren’t going to fire us or receive us. The last Federal Tournament we won twelve out of fourteen games, but they didn’t even congratulate the girls, but when the local men’s League played they made them asado and choripaneadas; the girls or water for the trip”.

The complaint filed with INADI, according to Pérez, calls for at least one public retraction in favor of the team, “but so far the club has not even presented itself to the mandatory conciliation.”

Far from the club that saw the team grow and then turned its back on them, the girls continued their course and participated in the League as Catamarca Básquet, behind they had to leave their title of “Las Estrelladas”, as they had been named in tribute to Red Star. Today they continue to play with the support of the Catamarca Basketball Federation and the public and private sector of the province.

“Representing Catamarca in the highest ranking league in the country is a source of pride. Seeing the growth of women’s basketball in the province over the years makes me very happy, especially for the girls who can see what it is possible to play basketball being a woman and follow this beautiful path that is sport”, says Candela Ruffino.

Regarding the events with Red Star, she says “I don’t know if I felt discrimination, it seems to me that it is a very strong word, but inequality in the possibilities of development in women’s basketball yes, and a lot. In many clubs where there is no room for female sport and not to mention in the organization of tournaments where the female is always in last place”.

“Regarding whether I suffered discrimination in the sports environment, the truth is. We played the federal tournament against all the current members of the new Club Commission who opposed it without reason. Once we ascend and carry the name of the club throughout higher, they turn their backs on us and begin to take out women’s basketball schedules in the lower ones as well, until they disappear. A club that was the hotbed of the province. A crazy thing, “laments Milagros Acevedo.

This weekend Catamarca Básquet faces Berazategui again on two dates; on Sunday and Monday. “We hope, why not, to beat them again,” bets the squad.

The Squad

The team of Catamarca Basketball players is made up of Acevedo Ahumada Milagros, Acevedo Ahumada María de los Ángeles, Ruffino Candela Yazmín, Ibarra de la Vega Julieta Beatriz, Albornoz Anahí, Alfaro Celeste Andrea, Rébola Andrea Beatriz, Cayo Melisa Ayelén, Villanueva Paulina, Gregorio Santos Joaquina, Galván Delfina Ivana, Coli Débora.

The technical team is made up of Gonzalo Pérez as technical director, Collantes Mercado Carlos assistant, Zalazar José Eduardo physical trainer, Hernández Novaro Facundo kinesiologist, Gómez Rita Alejandra team leader, Chacón Hugo Roberto press and Rodríguez Nancy utilera.