CN Sabadell has responded with an extensive seven-point statement to Maica García’s (Sabadell, 1990) threat to sue the club for unlawful dismissal after returning from her maternity leave and not having her contract renewed, a circumstance that led her to sign with CN Sant Andreu. The club from Vallès maintains that the decision to dispense with the international player, one of the best in the history of water polo, is “exclusively based on technical and sporting criteria” that have nothing to do with maternity, and defends an interpretation of the law different from that of Maica García.
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👉🏼Official statement from Club Natació Sabadell to refute the claims made by Maica Garcia
👉🏼https://t.co/0RJSD5tIp5 pic.twitter.com/JvgnlW4FEL— CN Sabadell (@CN_Sabadell) September 12, 2026
The CN Sabadell document establishes a detailed chronology, according to which in the summer of 2024, before the Paris Olympic Games, a competition in which the Spanish team won gold, the club and the player extended their contract until August 31, 2025. García then announced her intention to become a mother and the agreement included the possibility of being extended beyond 2025. The player informed of her pregnancy in January 2025 and the club provided the necessary resources until her subsequent return to competition and later formalized García’s continuation until August 31, 2026.
The club understands that it could have terminated the employment relationship with the player in August 2025 and, however, extended it for another year to “guarantee the full protection of the player’s rights” during her pregnancy – Olivia, García’s daughter, was born on September 25, 2025 -. On April 28, 2026, the president of Sabadell informed García of the launch of a new sports project in which she had no place from August 31. The club specifies that it offered the player on May 6 the option to continue in the entity with a role different from competing, a proposal that was rejected by García.
The club’s note also assures that it paid the player an amount conditioned on her retirement from water polo, despite her intention to continue competing, and reiterates that it has acted in accordance with the legislation before whom it considers “the best athlete in history” of CN Sabadell. García joined the club at four years old and has won seven Champions Leagues, seventeen Leagues, fifteen Queen’s Cups, five European Super Cups, and thirteen Spanish Super Cups. She has also been Olympic, world, and European champion and was chosen as the best player in Europe in 2014.
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Maica García denounced her dismissal from Sabadell for breach of contract on Thursday when she was presented as a player for Sant Andreu until 2028. The player explained that after becoming a mother in 2025 she resumed training convinced that her contract was automatically extended until 2027 based on article 6 bis of Royal Decree 1006/1985, introduced by Organic Law 2/2024, of August 1, 2024, which obliges clubs to extend the contract by one year for athletes who have become mothers during their last contract year, an interpretation different from that of Sabadell.
“I had very strong anxiety attacks,” the player recounted tearfully last Thursday, and admitted that it was hard for her to accept that the break with Sabadell was definitive: “I didn’t want to believe it was going to happen, I thought they would reconsider at some point.” “Sabadell is my life and it will continue to be. One thing is the club and another, the people. I don’t deserve this, neither I nor anyone else,” she added. “I have led many sports projects at this club,” she recalled, emphasizing that her goal remains to be active at the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
Maica García claimed her return to competition as a precedent for other athletes who consider becoming mothers during their professional careers: “I want to fight for the next girls or women who want to be mothers so that they have an easier path,” explained the Spanish international player who now competes with Sant Andreu.
