Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir reveals that Lyon did not pay her full salary during her pregnancy

In an open letter posted yesterday to The Players’ Tribune, former Lyon Women’s player Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir has claimed that Lyon had withheld part of her salary after she became pregnant. In the letter, Gunnarsdóttir explained her ensuing ordeal with the club. In May of last year, a FIFA tribunal ruled that Lyon would reimburse the Icelandic international for her unpaid salary, with interest.

The midfielder had previously played in the Icelandic league before a move to Denmark’s most successful team, FC Rosengård. In the letter, Gunnarsdóttir explained that at the time that she turned professional, she had told her agent: “Wolfsburg and Lyon. I want these.” It wasn’t long before these dreams were realised. In 2016, she moved to VfL Wolfsburg, where she won four consecutive Frauen-Bundesliga titles and four consecutive DFB-Pokal titles.

Almost inevitably, her prowess and ability precipitated a move to Lyon, serial winners of the Women’s Champions League. The club – for whom the seven-time Icelandic Women’s Footballer of the Year had dreamed of playing – had just won four consecutive European titles, and the move should have been a high point in her career. Just months after her arrival, in August 2020, she scored a goal against her former German side in a 3-1 win that sealed her first Champions League trophy, and, thus, Lyon’s fifth in a row. She would go on to win that title again in the 2021/22 season.

“I’ll never forget the feeling of winning the Champions League. Scoring in the final and winning the title with Lyon was one of my proudest moments in my career.”

“But then I got pregnant.”

Club successes were to be closely followed by a turbulent and emotionally-damaging year, as she began to navigate the roads-less-travelled of pregnancy as a professional footballer.

“At first, the only thing I felt was happiness, but then reality hit me.”

Although early in her pregnancy, she harboured doubts about how the news would affect both her career and her teammates. She kept the news private, except only to the team doctor and physios, who also agreed to keep her secret. But after a game at PSG in which she had been unable to come on as a substitute at half time, she decided that it was the right time to tell those at her club.

“I just said I’d been feeling sick the past few weeks because, ‘Yeah…. I’m pregnant.’ It was funny to see their reactions because some of them were so shocked. I think there were a lot of mixed emotions — when a player says she’s pregnant, it’s a special moment, but it also comes with quite a few unknowns.”

After discussions with club officials, per yesterday letter, she agreed to fly back to her home in Iceland to ease the process of birthgiving: to see doctors that spoke her language, and to be around her mother and family. All of this, she claimed, was contingent on her quick return to Lyon after she had delivered her baby. She said: “I wanted to return to Lyon after giving birth. I was very clear about that. I believed that being the first player ever for Lyon to return from pregnancy would be something we could all celebrate together.”

But on her return to Iceland, she claimed, not only one but two of her Lyon paychecks had never arrived. Other teammates, with whom she kept contact, had received their payments, at which point she engaged the club’s director through her agent. “He apologised” and reimbursed the missed payments. The third payment, however, “would be covered by French laws“. In her words, this meant that the club no longer owed her any more money.

So began a tumultuous ordeal in which she eventually took up with FIFPRO and took her case against the French giants to FIFA. All the while, she gave birth to her son, Ragnar, and returned with her partner Árni to France. Despite her anger at the club, she wished to devote her efforts to regaining fitness and – eventually – playing again. But, according to her, this is not what happened. She experienced resistance. She alleges that she was “treated differently.” It became impossible for her to believe that her case was not having an effect on her relationship with the club.

“They always made me feel like it was a negative thing that I had a baby.”

Eventually, in May this year, the FIFPRO lawsuit bore fruits. The club was ordered to pay all unpaid salaries. “The whole amount I requested and exactly what I was owed,” she wrote. FIFA’s tribunal stated the grounds for their decision against Lyon as a lack of a duty of care to their own player.

Ragnar is almost one year old, and Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir now plays for the most successful club in Italy, Juventus Women, where she is “very happy.”

After what may become a landmark ruling, Gunnarsdóttir wrote: “The victory felt bigger than me. It felt like a guarantee of financial security for all players who want to have a child during their career.”

“I want to make sure no one has to go through what I went through ever again. And I want Lyon to know this is not O.K.”

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