EXCLUSIVE

San Javier born football star Marta Peñalver Ramón had to turn down the invitation from Los Montesinos mayor Jose Manuel Butron and Sports Councillor Ana Belen to speak at the Congress on Sustainable Sport.

“Unfortunately I could not attend, due to being in training in Galicia with my new club,” Marta exclusively told me.

“I’m super excited, but I won’t be able to participate because I’m not currently in Murcia this year. I live in Galicia and I’m training,” added Futsal star Marta, who has departed Citta di Falconara and moved to Galicia based Poio Pescamar.

In a letter from Los Montesinos town hall, provided by Marta, it read:

Dear Ms. Marta Peñalver Ramón, on behalf of the mayor José Manuel Butrón Sánchez, I am pleased to invite you to the Congress on Sustainable Sport on September 29, 2022 in the Music School Auditorium and Culture of Los Montesinos (C Zaragoza, 5).

This congress intends to address the concept of Sustainable Sport from a broad perspective, allowing the creation of an environment for reflection and learning among all the people attending the event.

In this sense, there will be different discussion tables in which sport will be dealt with in a transversal way, combining this with equality, inclusion, protection of the environment and, lastly, local development. For this reason, I would like to have your participation as a speaker at the Sports and Equality Roundtable.

In this debate table you will be able to expose your vision and experience in the practice of futsal, a discipline that has traditionally been masculinized. Likewise, you will share a table with a trainer and municipal technical staff from the municipality of Orihuela.

We hope that you will be able to attend this event so that all of us can reflect on and value the relevance and social impact that sport has on our society.

We are waiting for you!  Best regards, Mrs. Ana Belén Juárez Pastor, Councillor for Promotion, Employment and Economic Development, Sports, Tourism and Commerce, Environment and Equality of the City Council of Los Montesinos.

Marta added: “Now I play in Spain, in Galicia. My new team is Poio Pescamar.

“This year I sought to help the team to compete to be as high in the classification as possible – and why not fight to get all the titles that we played.”

Marta, who has risen to fame having played in a World Cup tournament for Spain, from kicking a football in the streets in San Javier, said: “Life changes have been quite big, but I am sure it is an experience joining Poio Pescamar that will make me develop even more.”

Marta: Missed Congress of Sustainable Sport. Photo: bg.photos.

Having been headline news in Italy where she won the league and Cup titles, along with being nominated as one of the top players in women’s 5 star Futsal quintet 2021-22 Serie A season in Italy, Marta said: “The Italian titles have been a gift to many years of work.

But now I want to achieve new joys here in Spain.

“Learning is changing what we already are, being able to appropriate new knowledge that allows us to interpret our sport in a different way, relating what is new with what we already knew”.

Despite missing out on the Congress of Sustainable Sport Marta will visit Los Montesinos later this year, to personally meet me for the first time: “At Christmas I will go to Los Montesinos, maybe we could have a coffee together – so we can finally get to know each other face-to-face,” she told me.