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The CSD promotes a campaign to strengthen the social protection of high-level athletes

The CSD promotes a campaign to strengthen the social protection of high-level athletes

José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes has met with a group of athletes to analyze the status of social security contributions

  • Diego García Carrera, Lourdes Mohedano, Polina Berezina, Flor Amundson, Alberto Gaitero, Aharon Santamaría, Marta Arce, Lucía Martin-Português and María Calvo participated in this first meeting, with which the CSD initiates an outreach campaign aimed at expanding the social coverage of athletes.

  • Since 2019, more than 3,000 athletes have benefited from the call for grants for social security contributions, which already accumulates a total investment of more than 7.5 million euros.

 

Madrid, October 14, 2025.- The President of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, has met with a group of high-level athletes in order to address the present and future of the Social Security contribution system, which underlines the commitment of the Government of Spain to dignify and improve the working conditions of this group.

The gymnasts Lourdes Mohedano and Polina Berezina, the athlete Diego García Carrera, the grass hockey player Flor Amundson, the judocas Alberto Gaitero, Aharon Santamaría and Marta Arce, the fencing player Lucía Martin-Portuguese and the rugby player María Calvo have participated in this first meeting, which marks the beginning of a series of informative actions aimed at sensitizing athletes about the importance of their affiliation to Social Security, to know the advantages of the VOCSD to promote this type of contributions.

Since the approval in 2019 of the Special Agreement for High-Level Athletes, more than 3,000 athletes have benefited from this aid, to which the CSD has already allocated more than 7.5 million euros. In the call for applications for 2025, 745 applications have been received, which will result in aid amounting to 1,739,000 euros.

“Our goal is for high-level athletes to have the same rights as other workers: medical coverage, conciliation rights, unemployment benefit and, when the time comes, a decent and adequate pension,” said CSD President José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, at the end of this first meeting with athletes on Social Security.

 

 

“Our priority is to support and protect them, not only during their active years but also after the end of their sports career,” added the Secretary of State for Sport.

Some beneficiaries of this aid have participated in the meeting, such as the athlete Diego García Carrera, who has considered them “a very important pillar” for athletes.“We have to think not only about the present, but also about what is going to happen to us after our sports career and when we reach retirement age,” he said.

In the same vein, judoca Marta Arce, who championed Spain at the Paralympic Games in Paris 2024, has stressed the need for “awareness among athletes”, especially the youngest ones, so that “they do not only focus on the most immediate results”.

“Perhaps now they are not seeing, just as it happened to me at their age, that there is a future, that the career of an athlete must be dual and that we must have a ‘Plan B’ prepared for when we retire,” agreed the swordsmith Lucía Martin-Português.

After collecting and analyzing the reflections of this group of high-level athletes, the CSD will establish “an effective roadmap to expand the social protection of those who make our sport great”, in the words of José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes.

Thus, the CSD plans to continue this meeting with new meetings, information campaigns and digital tools that will facilitate access to this aid, whose economic allocation comes from 1% of the income generated by the marketing of the rights of exploitation of audiovisual content of professional football competitions. As established in article 6 of Royal Decree-Law 5/2015, professional football clubs are obliged to allocate 1% of this income to the Higher Sports Council, which in this way reinvests them in the financing of the costs of public social protection systems for high-level athletes.

“Because the success of Spanish sport is not only measured in medals, but in how we take care of our athletes during and after their career. We are not going to leave any athletes behind,” said José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes.