Everton’s warm welcome to Toni Duggan and her baby Luella

England’s Toni Duggan became a mother in March after giving birth to little Luella and became the first professional footballer in history to benefit from the new collective agreement which allows England’s elite footballers to take maternity leave and get your full salary . In addition, he will be able to rejoin the discipline of his club, Everton, without any problems.

It’s a great step forward that the player himself and his club are keen to celebrate, having welcomed the former Barça and Atlético player with open arms yesterday. “Guess who visited us,” the Premier club wrote on their social networks.

Everton’s current striker Tony Dugganannounced in March the birth of her daughter Luella, twice happy birth. And it was that to the exciting news of becoming a mother was added the fact that Duggan became the first player of Women’s Super League to benefit from the new maternity coverage.

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The player, who has 79 caps for England, announced her pregnancy in September, two weeks after the English WSL season. Duggan has not played for Everton since last year, but is entitled to full pay since taking a leave of absence due to her pregnancy. All this is thanks to new developments in English women’s football to provide coverage for soccer players in the event of maternity.

At first, there was controversy in the English club about how she had to announce her pregnancy. So, in an interview with The Times, Duggan pointed out that she was struggling to communicate her pregnancy to her current club. A situation where he had a very bad time, because he tried to hide it because of “fear”. He even lied to people very close to him to keep the information from leaking.

“You have the fact that you are a professional soccer player and then you have to tell someone as soon as possible that you are pregnant. Ideally, I would have wanted that person to become a mother, but he recommended that I wait until 12 weeks to make sure the baby is OK. So that was my process and my boyfriend’s, but obviously I had to tell the club doctor, because I was still training. I found out during the pre-season. One day I was running strong and I thought : ‘I can’t do this.'” Duggan explained in the interview.