Megan Rapinoe's subway ads defaced, vandalized with homophobic graffiti a day after World Cup victory
One day after the US women's soccer team secured their World Cup championship victory, posters of captain Megan Rapinoe were vandalized at the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station in Manhattan.
At about 7 am on Monday, a commuter passing by the park train station noticed homophobic graffiti on the posters, the New York Post reports.
While at least six posters of Rapinoe were defaced by the miscreant, they have since been cleaned by Metropolitan Transportation Authority personnel.
The NYPD Hate Crime task force has now launched an investigation into the incident.
"Hate has no place in the transit system and we work hard to make the subway a welcoming, safe environment for everyone," the MTA said in a statement. "We referred this to NYPD which responded to investigate, our maintenance teams got the posters cleaned and we will have them replaced with new ones if necessary."
In the second half of the final match on Sunday, Rapinoe converted a tiebreaking penalty kick to lead her team to win its record fourth Women's World Cup title and second in a row.
Rapinoe became the oldest player to score in a Women's World Cup final after she had turned 34 just two days before. What's more? She won the Golden Boot for the tournament's top scorer as well as Golden Ball for the top player.
President Donald Trump responded to Rapinoe after she said she would refuse an invitation to visit the White House.
The commander-in-chief advised Rapinoe on Twitter, saying she should never "disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag, especially since so much has been done for her & the team."
Last month, Rapinoe told Yahoo Sports she would "probably never sing or honor the national anthem again."
"I'll probably never put my hand over my heart. I'll probably never sing the national anthem again," the LGBT activist said in an interview published on May 13. "It's kind of a good ‘F you' to any sort of inequality or bad sentiments that the [Trump] administration might have towards people who don't look exactly like him."