Pro female footballer is ‘FIRED’ for falling pregnant: Italian goalkeeper, 34, says ‘I feel hurt as a woman, mother and athlete’ and like ‘an old toy to be thrown away’
- Alice Pignagnoli, 34, said she was sacked from her club after falling pregnant
- Pignagnoli was a goalkeeper for Italian women’s third-division side Lucchese
- The pro goalkeeper said she felt like she was ‘an old toy to be thrown away’
An Italian professional footballer says she has been fired from her club for falling pregnant.
Alice Pignagnoli, 34, who was a goalkeeper at Italian third-division side Lucchese, based in Tuscany, said she was sacked by her club because she had a child on the way.
‘I’m pregnant and my team has stopped paying my wages,’ Pignagnoli told Italian newspaper Il Resto del Carlino.
Across her sixteen-year career, Pignagnoli has played for AC Milan, Torres, Mantua, and Reggiana.
Alice Pignagnoli, 34, an Italian professional footballer says she has been fired from her club after falling pregnant. The goalkeeper posted a message to her Instagram page, writing it as a letter to her unborn child
Alice Pignagnoli, 34, who was a goalkeeper at Italian third division side Lucchese, based in Tuscany, said she was sacked by her club because she had a child on the way. She is pictured training in 2021
Pignagnoli said: ‘I felt hurt as a woman, mother and athlete. And also very alone, incapable.’ She is pictured in a post to her Instagram page in July 2022
In 2011 she won the Italian Super Cup with Torres, a club in Sassari, Sardinia, before going on to with the league later that season.
Pignagnoli said: ‘In mid October I found out I was pregnant for the second time. I told Lucchese manager Mario Santoro, and I was told that a deal made last summer had to be respected, and that they no longer intended to pay me what I’m due.’
The goalkeeper posted a message to her Instagram page, writing it as a letter to her unborn child.
In the long post, Pignagnoli said: ‘I felt hurt as a woman, mother and athlete. And also very alone, incapable.’
Across her sixteen-year career, Pignagnoli has played for AC Milan, Torres, Mantua and Reggiana. Pignagnoli is pictured in her goalkeeper kit for Censa in 2019
Pignagnoli said she felt like ‘an old toy to be thrown away’. She is pictured preparing for training in 2021
In her Instagram post, Pignagnoli said: ‘I dream a world of love where the women come from supported in one of the biggest and yet difficult tasks they face
She said she felt like ‘an old toy to be thrown away’.
When she was seven months pregnant with her first child, her then club Cesena had renewed her contract.
‘After what happened two years ago with Cesena, I would never have expected this to happen,’ she said.
In her Instagram post, Pignagnoli added: ‘I dream a world of love where women can be supported in one of the biggest and yet difficult tasks they face: not only generating life, but not feeling ‘wrong’ about their choices.
‘A world where women are valued by their worth and not by the amount of children they have or don’t have.’
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