American Megan Rapinoe, world football star and influential voice in the fight against inequality and discrimination, announced on Saturday that she would retire from sport at the end of the season at the age of 38. A talented player with an eloquent track record, but also a feminist activist and defender of the LGBT+ cause, she is one of those athletes who have put their notoriety at the service of causes beyond the scope of their sport.
“It is with a deep sense of peace and gratitude that I have decided that this season will be my last playing this magnificent sport. I could never have imagined how much football has shaped and changed my life forever, “wrote on his social networks the American striker, who is about to play the fourth World Cup of his career in Australia and in New Zealand (July 20-August 20).
Activist
Double world champion (2015, 2019), Olympic champion in 2012 in London and winner of the Golden Ball in 2019, the striker with 199 caps (and 63 goals) spread over 17 years is also a committed activist who theorized the responsibility of sportsmen and women to take a position in public debates.
Rapinoe was thus one of the first to kneel in 2016 during the American anthem to denounce police violence against members of the black community in the wake of former American football star (NFL) Colin Kaepernick.
Feminist activist, on the front line of the fight for LGBT + rights since her coming out in 2012, the co-captain of the American selection, engaged to ex-basketball player Sue Bird, did not hesitate to s Take a frontal attack on Republican President Donald Trump, elected in 2016, calling him a representative of “white supremacists”.
Last World Cup
Last month, the attacker who plays in the American championship (NWSL) under the jersey of OL Reign, the franchise of Seattle, underlined the importance of the World Cup to come in Australia and New Zealand for the recognition of female sports practice.
This World Cup, she said, is “a real opportunity to break the ceiling in terms of enthusiasm, media and sponsors and more broadly business around this sport”. “I feel incredible gratitude to have played for so long, lived through all of our successes and been part of a generation of players who will undoubtedly leave football in a better state than they found it,” she wrote in his message broadcast on Saturday.