"We go from everything to zero": how Isabelle Yacoubou experienced her pregnancy in full career

Gauthier Delomez 6:03 p.m., March 12, 2023

A subject taken head on by the Ministry of Sports.

At the beginning of the week, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra launched some ideas to improve the situation of high-level sportswomen who choose to become a mother during their career.

A situation that Isabelle Yacoubou encountered, without having chosen it.

The French basketball player, pivot of the Bleues for many years and Olympic vice-champion in 2012, recounts her experience in

.

>> READ ALSO

- The maternity of professional rugby players better supported in England

At the microphone of Lénaïg Monier, the 36-year-old former French international who plays today in Tarbes, affirms that her life changed "drastically" the day she became pregnant.

A pregnancy revealed to the general public

"I had just resigned to Famila Schio (an Italian club, editor's note) for three years of contract, where I thought I would end my career, and finally I got pregnant (...). It was not planned at all, and when I announce the news, they (the leaders of the club) are delighted for me humanly, but that posed a problem at the level of the organization of the team, and the way in which they were going to rebuild it since it had been oriented around from me in relation to recruitment", details the star of the Blue, who has nearly 150 selections in the tricolor jersey.

After having spoken to its leaders fairly early on, the Italian basketball club decided to reveal her pregnancy to the general public, which Isabelle Yacoubou did not find "correct".

"They had to talk about it to be able to recruit a senior player, knowing that in June-July, most of the big players are taken. They must have revealed that I was pregnant earlier, when I didn't. didn't want", she explains, remembering "muscular exchanges" with its leaders.

Shortly after, the president of the club contacts her again to apologize, and to convince her to stay.

"He says to me 'for us, the project does not change. You do not resume this year, and we put 'cool' your three years of contract. When you are ready to resume, you come back home'. For me , it was clear: I was going back there to finish my career with my contract which was just postponed by a year in the end", recalls the French basketball player.

“A form of precariousness”

During her pregnancy, unable to play on the courts, the 1.90m pivot points out that she no longer received a salary since top athletes did not have maternity leave.

"Even if we can't talk about precariousness, because I was lucky enough to have put a little money aside to be able to live, (this situation) still projects us into a form of precariousness. the next day, we go from everything to zero", says Isabelle Yacoubou at the microphone of Europe 1.

>> Find Europe Matin in replay and podcast here

The player then made the choice to return to France to benefit from Social Security, and gave up her contract in Italy where the medical expenses were at her expense.

But it wasn't as simple as that.

"In France, it took me more than six months to reopen my rights because for expatriates, it's much longer. My rights were opened two months after the delivery of my daughter", relates the tricolor basketball player, who has always wanted to talk about her motherhood with her teammates and her various leaders.

With her experience, Isabelle Yacoubou now shares her desire to raise awareness among young players on this subject.

"There are things that are being done, guides are put in place with tools to take care of her pregnancy and help the club", explains the basketball player, shining the spotlight on a still sensitive subject in the world of professional sport.