Megan Rapinoe: ‘FIFA has a lot of blood on their hands’

US soccer star Megan Rapinoe slams FIFA, talks about equal pay for female players and says women’s sports is set to become a ‘billion dollar’ industry.

Megan Rapinoe says administrators are waking up to the value of women’s sport Picture: AFP

US soccer star Megan Rapinoe says people “abusing their power grinds my gears” and says soccer’s world governing body FIFA has “a lot of blood on their hands”.

Rapinoe, headline speaker at a sports leaders conference to be held in Melbourne next month, fiercely believes sport and politics mix.

In an extensive interview she speaks on a range of topics from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to her leading role in achieving a historic equal pay deal for the US women’s soccer team, the right of transgender kids to play sport and her belief that women’s sports is set to become a “billion-dollar” industry.

Jessica Halloran: I just want to ask you about the horror that is unfolding in Ukraine. While FIFA has said that Russian teams are banned until further notice, can you just reflect on that governing body’s behaviour in the past? Like Russia hosted the World Cup in 2018 and in 2019 FIFA president Gianni Infantino was presented with the Russian Order of Friendship medal by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Megan Rapinoe: This has kind of been FIFA’s blueprint for a long time to cozy up to dictators or corruption.

I mean we’re going to see it in the next World Cup as well in Qatar and human rights abuses that are happening there. We’ve known about that for a long time.

We’ve known about Russia’s horrible record on the LGBTQ rights community and all of that. It’s obviously just a horrible situation in general, but I think that FIFA can’t just sort of wring their hands clean of it now.

They’ve made very conscious choices to cozy up to the likes of Vladimir Putin for a long time, and I think they should be held accountable. And I think that hopefully if there’s any positive that could come out, maybe this will spur — I don’t have a ton of confidence in this — but spur maybe a new way of doing things at FIFA that is using the full power of FIFA for good, which is sort of probably in their mission statement somewhere.

But that’s not what they do and that is not where they use their full power. And a lot of people, over the years have used the power of FIFA to line their own pockets or the pockets of people close to them. And that’s just really unfortunate, as we can understand how impactful soccer can be all around the world and I think there can just be so much more good done with it.

So I think FIFA has a lot of blood on their hands in a lot of different ways. I don’t dance around that and I don’t think we need to because I think it’s pretty clear and obvious now.

Emir of Qatar sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in 2018 Picture: AFP

Yes, still on FIFA, the prize money for the Women’s World Cup in 2023 is increasing to $60 million, but in 2022 the men’s World Cup prize pool will be $450m. The pay gap remains enormous.

Enormous. When they doubled it or whatever they did, I'm like, “Based on what?” You know, like based on that you thought you were going to get a big pat on the back for just being like, “Oh, we doubled it and that sounds really flashy”.

But maybe actually invest in the game. You saw with your own eyes how successful the World Cup in France was, how successful the World Cup was before that. You saw the Camp Nou sold out this year and you’re seeing it all across Europe. You are seeing it everywhere; just the growth of the (women’s) game. But I feel like they’re really still not taking it all that seriously. They are not seeing it as truly an opportunity to invest as a growth of the game — as a money-making opportunity — that can go back into the game. They are not seeing it as an opportunity to really put the full weight of FIFA behind it. Sure, is $60m better than $30m? Yes, of course, but it’s still a little bit of the same, especially with FIFA. I mean $60m, this is just a drop in the bucket for them.

The common argument of women’s sport’s detractors is that there are not as many people watching it on TV, buying tickets and merchandise. It doesn’t make a profit.
I love how the only thing we ever hear about women‘s sports is how, you know, we’re not meeting whatever metrics, whether TV or ticket sales or revenue, and we don’t talk about the investment at all.

Meanwhile on the men’s side, we know this full well, it’s billions of dollars of investment in every single sport that has made it to the top. The NFL — billions of dollars investment. The NBA — billions of dollars of investment. Major League Baseball — billions of dollars. I’m just like, where on earth do you start a business having zero investment and then judge yourself based on all these things? It’s actual insanity.

Don’t come to me and tell me that no one is watching me on TV when I can’t even find my game on TV. Meanwhile the NBA is thrown in my face every other day. I don’t want to hear about it.

Megan Rapinoe during an Equal Pay Day event at the White House last year Picture: AFP

Tell me about that moment when you found out after that epic six-year legal battle that you had reached a landmark settlement with US Soccer for equal pay. How did that feel?

It did just kind of feel surreal because it is something that obviously we’ve been fighting for a long time. But it’s sort of longer than that as well. We know that the entire history of the US team has been fighting for this for women. We know teams around the world are fighting for this and knowing obviously that there’s still a lot of work to be done.

This is a huge moment not only for us players, but I think for a lot of us, especially the older ones, knowing that it will be dramatically different for every player going forward forever.

It was a little bittersweet because you can‘t take away what’s been done. There’s no justice for what happened in the past, only that it never happens in the future.

What do you think this means for the rest of women’s sports in the world? 

I mean, hopefully we are just one more team that’s achieved it and one more point of success. And I think our team in particular, because we’ve had such commercial success off the field even without equal pay, I think is a real road map for a lot of these other teams around the world.

Obviously, you’re in Australia right now and I’m just thinking of the Women’s World Cup in Australia, like all those Australian players should be making bank leading into that tournament in 2023. They’re going to be on the world stage in one of the most important events. They have such a great team and such a great history. They have tons of superstars.

I feel like hopefully it’s just another Federation doing the right thing — not just because it’s a charity thing, which it is not a charity thing at all — but doing the right thing because it’s best business practices and profitable and it’s a huge area of growth.

Just seeing how with investment, with attention and effort towards women’s games pays off. I feel like a $1 is invested in the women’s game, it just comes back tenfold and in all women’s sports to be honest.

Last month it was announced that the WNBA has raised $75m from more than two dozen investors in a bid to revamp its business model — WNBA players in turn are calling for expansion and higher salaries. Where is the juggernaut of women’s sports going? 

Up, up, up. There is no ceiling. I really believe that. I think that we’ve seen that across basically every single women’s league and women’s sport that has been invested in, whether it’s, you know, in Barcelona, Manchester, Sydney, the United States or wherever we are. It just seems to be growing up huge.

I think that the kind of the age-old “Oh nobody wants to watch women’s sports, women’s sports aren’t popular, women’s sports are profitable” is just ridiculous. We’re not even having that conversation. If you’re saying that, your head is completely in the sand.

So I think that that’s a huge marker for the WNBA. I mean, $75m is real money. That’s massive and I think that speaks to the viability of women’s sports in general. So then, you know, when the National Women’s Soccer league in the US goes to raise money or an overseas governing body goes to raise money or whatever … there’s all of these different data points that you can point to as evidence that we haven’t really had that much of before. Honestly, I see exponential growth. I think hopefully in the Big B billions.

The other thing you‘ve been really vocal about of late is being a really strong advocate for trans kids and their rights to play sport. Can you talk about why you feel strongly about this?

Obviously just being part of the LGBTQ community, but I think also, honestly, just being a human being, I think here in the United States we have just some horrifically cruel bills. In Texas right now, they’re literally wanting to take children away from their families. It’s outrageous.

There’s nothing to show now that trans women are dominating in sports. And I think the whole entire conversation around trans people just in general in their entire existence is being shoved through this tiny hole of elite sport. And like that is point 0001 per cent of all people just in general and even a smaller percentage of trans people.

We’re stopping everything from happening for trans people and health care, affirming health care, and being able to play sports in schools and everything just so we can talk about what if someone wins a gold medal?

I don’t really care. This is so much bigger than that, and it’s being shoved through this tiny little hole. Quite nefariously, and I’m absolutely not having it.

Rapinoe and Seattle Storm WNBA player Sue Bird announced their engagement in October Picture: Getty Images

In the last 18 months we’ve heard Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles speak candidly about their mental health battles. But it comes with an emotional burden. Do you ever feel that emotional toll? 

I definitely do feel the emotional toll, for sure. I mean, it’s a lot. Trying to just compete in an elite sport is a lot in general. because you’re constantly laying yourself bare and being like, “Is it good enough?’ And it either is or it isn’t. It is very clear when it’s not. So that can be very difficult.

I think from a mental health perspective, what Simone and Naomi and so many others have done is just massive. We are barely scratching the surface just from a societal level on understanding what it even means.

People really related it to those two, particularly during the Olympics, during a pandemic, which has been extremely hard on people‘s mental health. And I think having famous people like that, who seemingly have it all — not just the money and fame but all the resources and all of the ability to find great healthcare, whatever it may be — and they’re still struggling.

So that opens up a whole different conversation of, “OK, this is not based on your income or your job or whatever”. This is something that we need to understand a lot better’.

Naomi Osaka was upset after being heckled by a spectator at Indian Wells this week Picture: Getty Images

Do you feel like sporting organisations are changing? 

I definitely feel like it‘s shifting. I think the power structures are starting to be broken down and becoming much more democratic. I’ll say I think that transparency is being demanded, which is forced change … when they don’t (change) they’re getting called out.

And there’s real-life consequences, whether it’s sponsors or sanctions or whatever it is.

I think that not only the athlete voices has gotten really powerful and really just kind of taken back the power that’s kind of rightfully theirs in their own agency and autonomy. But the general public is just demanding more.

That’s a really good thing because it’s not just a couple of athletes trying to go after these massive sports organisations that can ultimately hang their career in the balance. I think people are starting to have the language and the tools to call certain things out, be it racism or abuse or sexual abuse or verbal abuse or manipulation or a power structure dynamic that’s off.

I think we have so many more tools and players understand now that, “OK, that’s actually not acceptable. It was never acceptable and it always felt wrong. We just didn’t know that we could say that.”

So I think that that is starting to change and hopefully all the way up.

I mean, you referenced obviously the situation in Ukraine and FIFA’s involvement with the Putin administration. I think that’s another example. There’s obviously an outcry from the sporting community, but it has real life consequences. I think that sports are so intertwined in our lives in so many different ways on a global level that this can have a positive impact from a school league all the way up to FIFA.

During the last World Cup you said you weren’t going to the “f. king White House” if the team won, which drew a fierce Twitter rebuke from then President Donald Trump. Did you ever personally hear from Donald Trump again after he tweeted “Megan should WIN before she TALKS”, and then you went “hold my beer” and won the World Cup? 

Not personally, but I did hear that the White House at the time was … back channelling and did want us to come, do some sort of big event or something.

So yeah, I‘m sure he would have loved to have us up there because, honestly, I felt like he was kind of a fan too. Like I know you’re hating, but … it seems like you’re a big fan because you do love winning and you do like people who are basically arrogant or very confident. I put myself right on that borderline.

But no, we haven’t. We haven’t had any one-on-one time, which I hope I frankly never do.

The SportNXT conference will be held at Centrepiece, Melbourne Park, from April 6-8