Know your audience.
Megan Rapinoe has always had an uncanny ability to choose the right tone and words when speaking in public, and she did it again Monday in Milan as she received the Nobel Prize for Literature. FIFA Women’s Player of the Year Award.
On that occasion, Rapinoe realized that the audience before her at La Scala included many of the world’s most famous athletes, most of whom had never heard her speak in person before. That’s something, Rapinoe’s confidence. She can have it when she’s downing glasses of champagne, talking nonsense and energizing hundreds of thousands of people at a New York fashion show.
Or she can do it while wearing a gorgeous black velvet designer gown and talking about deadly serious topics from the stage of the world’s most famous opera house.
Rapinoe didn’t have much time to deliver her speech on Monday, but she took the opportunity to address the topic of racism in football on a stage in Italy, which has recently been the scene of several such incidents.
“Some of the stories that have inspired me the most this year,” Rapinoe said, “are Raheem Sterling and (Kalidou) Koulibaly, their incredible performances on the field, but also how they have confronted the disgusting racism that they have faced this year, but probably their entire lives.
“The young Iranian girl who ultimately set herself on fire because she couldn’t go to the game,” she continued. “The openly gay MLS player (Collin) Martin and the countless other players who fight so hard every day to a) simply play the game they love but b) combat the rampant homophobia we see.
“These are all stories that inspire me a lot, but also make me a little bit sad and a little bit disappointed. If we really want meaningful change, the most inspiring thing to me would be if everyone, apart from Raheem Sterling and Koulibaly, was as outraged by racism as they were… If everyone was as outraged by homophobia as LGBTQ players are… if everyone was as outraged by equal pay or the lack of investment in women’s football, apart from women, that would be the most inspiring thing to me.”
Rapinoe, more than any other athlete, understood what former French world champion Lilian Thuram said about racism in football: “The problem is not that the targets of this racism – black players – have to fix it. When Inter’s Romelu Lukaku is the victim of racist chants from Cagliari fans, media reports should not contain photos and quotes from Lukaku. Instead, they should show prominent white players denouncing racism, using their platforms. They should show white leaders in Italian football taking real action against racism – which is clearly not what they did (in fact, they did the opposite).”
“I think that’s what I’m asking of everyone,” Rapinoe said Monday. “We have an incredible opportunity as professional soccer players. We have so much success, financially and otherwise. We have incredible platforms. I’m asking everyone here — because I think everyone in this room probably has this crown that they wear — to lend their platform to other people. Encourage others. Share their success. We have a unique opportunity in soccer, unlike any other sport in the world: to use this beautiful game to actually change the world for the better. So that’s what I’m asking of everyone. I hope you take this to heart and do something. Do anything. We have incredible power in this room.”
Rapinoe, more than any other athlete in 2019, has made the greatest strides in unleashing that power. She did it again in Milan.
