BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — In Argentina, a country obsessed with football and the proud holder of three World Cup titles, women have yet to be fully welcomed into the beautiful game.

With some recent social advances for women in the overwhelmingly Catholic South American country — with elective abortion legalized in 2020 — the game of Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona has slowly started to open up too.

But progress has been slow.

It was only four years ago, in 2019, that Argentine women's football was declared semi-professional — meaning players can make a partial living off the sport. It is not yet a career.

"We suffer abuses and our rights are not respected," says the Pibas con Pelotas (Girls with Balls) organization of players and coaches fighting for equal treatment.

With little money for women's soccer, "we continue to wear the clothing left over from male football and we do not have physical space or equipment for training," it states on its website.

The association points out that most clubs do not have lower-level teams where talent can be spotted and developed, and there are few opportunities for girls to play at school.

"We do not have medical coverage for injuries, nor do we have professional contracts," states the group.

As the Argentine national team prepares for the FIFA World Cup starting in New Zealand and Australia later this month, players still face an uphill battle.

Camila Gomez Ares, a former Boca Juniors midfielder, recently told a conference at a school for sports journalism that women's club players do not earn enough to train every day.

"If you get up at 6 a.m. in the morning and work all day, you cannot be a professional," she said. She now plays football at the University of Concepcion in Chile.

Another former Boca player Julia Paz Dupuy said "nobody came to see" her team play in Argentina.

"We played on synthetic grass pitches," not the real grass reserved for male games. "The clothes were big, huge," Dupuy told the same conference.

Like many others unable to make it in the male-dominated sphere, she now makes money playing futsal, a football-inspired indoors court game, in Spain.