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WHY ATHLETE RIGHTS SHOULD BE AT THE CORE OF SPORT MARY HARVEY OLY Mary Harvey is an accomplished and innovative sports governance and sustainability executive with more than 15 years’ experience leading worldwide initiatives to achieve societal change and gender equity through sports. Mary is Chief Executive at the Centre for Sport and Human Rights. Previously, Mary was a senior executive at FIFA (2003-2008) and served as a sport envoy for the US State Department’s Sports Diplomacy Division on several occasions. A lifelong athlete, Mary enjoyed an eight-year career with the US Women’s National Soccer Team, winning the inaugural FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991 and Olympic Gold in 1996. Mary tweets @maryvharvey
When I was playing for the US Women’s National Team in the 1991 FIFA Women’s World Cup, I had little idea of the road that women’s soccer would forge in the decades ahead fighting for equal rights as workers, and as women. But even back then, while it was always about winning, it was also about what would be left behind for the generations to come. The idea of generational legacy has always been part of the ethos of the US Women‘s Soccer Team, so it is with the pride of a proud parent that I see the current generation of women – rock stars in their own right – tackle equal pay. Athletes are recognising that competing on the stage their profession affords them a platform to speak out against discrimination, exploitation
and abuse, as many did in the recent #BlackLivesMatter protests. These athletes are doing this at personal and professional risk, which is why I believe the time has come to view these athletes for what they are: human rights defenders who should be supported and acknowledged for their bravery. As the current co-captain of US Women’s Soccer, Alex Morgan, said of the team’s gender discrimination lawsuit1, wearing the United States jersey comes with responsibility, and “fighting for gender equality in sports is part of that responsibility”. In the last year alone, there have been several examples of athletes speaking out, such as Mary Cain2, who shed light on the abusive training practices she was subjected to, Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling 3 to highlight police brutality in the US – a decision from which his career has never recovered, Serena Williams speaking out4 over sexism in tennis, and the egregious revelations from the Larry Nassar case 5, first brought to light by former US gymnast Rachael Denhollander and corroborated by others including Jessica Howard, Jeanette Antolin and Jamie Dantzscher.
