Maica García, a water polo hero and Olympic gold medalist, cried when she said her club, Astralpool Sabadell, ended her contract after she returned as a mother. Now she has come forward to share the truth that women in sports face. Especially when they come back to resume their career post-maternity. García played for the club for 32 years. She grew up with the team. She said the sudden ending surprised her and made her feel very sad.
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During a press conference, shared by Teledeporte, García wept while revealing why her club, Astralpool Sabadell, stopped working with her after she had a baby. She thought she would go back to the team she had always been with. Shockingly, she found out the club had already decided not to have her anymore once she became a mother.
“I wasn’t expecting this bombshell, it caused me a lot of anxiety,” She said in the X post of the interview. “It’s been a pride to play with those colors, but I don’t deserve that. In this last stage, I have not been respected. I didn’t want to believe that it was true, I thought they would recap, that they would tell me that they were wrong and that they wanted me on the team.”
García thought her contract would keep going until August 2027 because of a law in Spain. That law is supposed to help athletes when they’re pregnant or after they have a baby. Instead, as seen in the X post, the club stopped talking to her, and only later did the management contact her, announcing her membership cancellation.
“When you give birth within a natural season, the law requires you to extend the athlete’s contract for another season,” García said.
Now, García has joined a new club, CN Sant Andreu, where she will continue her legendary water polo career. The team has welcomed the Spanish athlete with great joy and looks forward to the upcoming season.
However, this ends García’s glorious time with the Astralpool Sabadell. She started at Sabadell when she was four years old. Later, she led the team to win multiple titles, including seven Champions League wins.
In response, the club disregarded García’s claims, stating they changed their plans and wanted a different direction. According to them, it was a decision rooted in sporting criteria. However, the athlete didn’t agree.
She said her lawyer is getting ready to sue Sabadell. She believes the club broke the law by letting her go just because she had a baby. This could affect women in sports.
Garcías fight is similar to another case in sports history. A soccer player from Iceland, Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, had a problem with a club in France. The club didn’t pay her. Said they didn’t have to follow sports rules. She took them to court and won. Now clubs have to follow the rules about being a mom.
Like Gunnarsdóttir, García is going to court in Spain to make sure the rules about being a mom are followed in her sport. Both cases show that big clubs don’t always see being a mom as a priority.
García hasn’t let Sabadell’s decision stop her career. She has already helped Spain win gold in the previous Olympics. The star athlete now focuses on winning gold at the LA 2028 Olympics, as a veteran athlete and a mother.
She is hopeful that her baby will get to watch her play on the biggest sporting stage. By talking about her sadness and fear, she hopes to make changes for athletes.
García’s sad moment with her ex-club shows the problems women face when trying to do sports and have a family. While her club let go of her after about 30 years, García didn’t stay quiet. With a team and a court case, she turned her pain into a fight for the rights of mothers in sports.