It seems like every other week there’s a new story about an athlete who turned to OnlyFans to try to keep the lights on while playing their sport but was forced out of their athletic career thanks to their account on the subscription-based platform. The latest athlete is Marcela Soares.
Soares played for Pelotas, a Brazilian futsal team located in Rio Grande do Sul state until recently. If you didn’t know, futsal is a variant of soccer typically played indoors in a basketball-sized court — and it is incredibly popular in South America. It was Soares’ passion, until club officials claimed she was bringing shame to the organization and forced her out.
Soares joins the list of other athletes being shamed and ostracized for their OnlyFans accounts, including British canoeist Kurts Adams Rozentals who recently was told by Paddle UK, the governing body for his sport, that he was banned from competing and under investigation. It seems the problem is related to his OnlyFans account.
Rozentals is being asked to choose between his potential Olympic future or being able to pay his bills as he trains, and Soares is facing a similar dilemma.
In a recent interview Soares revealed: “I love futsal, it’s my passion forever. But I can’t stay somewhere that tries to control who I am outside of the game.”
She went on: “I never stopped being the athlete I always was, and I never disrespected the club. But I was told I was setting a bad example for children.”
The futsal player, who is only 21-years-old, was frustrated by the response to her OnlyFans account and subsequent ban from her team: “I was judged, excluded and I felt betrayed even by other women. But I also gained something: freedom and financial independence. Today I feel stronger.”
Soares initially turned to the subscription-based platform because she was paid only R$550 (which is almost $98 USD) per month through the futsal club. That amount didn’t even cover transportation costs to and from the training facility for Soares. There’s no way she could have lived on that small amount of money — yet it’s hard for athletes like Soares to keep a traditional job due to their training schedules.
So now Soares is free to find a traditional job, but why would she when she made nearly $10,000 USD in just her first month on the platform?
It seems that Soares plans to stay on OnlyFans and off the court.
“It’s sad but I leave the sport with a clear conscience. If I’d had this financial return from sport, I would never have left it,” Soares said of futsal.
Unfortunately, she’s not alone in making this kind of decision. Even though OnlyFans is becoming a more and more common sponsor for athletes, some organizations are not on board with the infamous company being associated with their sport. Yet OnlyFans continues to court athletes, offering lucrative sponsorships on par with other more traditional brands.
An OnlyFans spokesperson explained of the push toward reaching out to athletes, “OnlyFans is passionate about providing opportunities for athletes in smaller, niche sports, recognizing that it is often harder for them to access funding and to reach a wide audience.”