Queen Rania's Acceptance Speech for the FIFA Presidential Award 2009 - Zurich, Switzerland

Thank you, Sepp, for those very kind words. Your leadership has made football a force to be reckoned with both on and off the pitch. Your compassion and commitment to others inspires us all, and it makes me proud to be working with you for 1GOAL.

And thank you to the Global Campaign for Education, without which 1GOAL wouldn’t be possible.

It’s an honour to be here with football giants… heroes to children everywhere. Your passion, skill, and spirit make us cheer… bring us to our feet… and make us believe we are part of something bigger… part of one team.

That’s the power of football: to fuel our dreams and feed our belief in a larger cause. And that’s what 1GOAL is here to tap for global education.

1GOAL, with FIFA and the 2010 South Africa World Cup, is collecting 30 million signatures for children who can’t even write their own names.

1GOAL is harnessing the deafening roar of fans for those children whose voices go unheard.

72 million children… nearly half in sub-Saharan Africa… out of school… on the sidelines… benched for life.

But we can put these children back into the game… back into school.

When new world champions are crowned next year, we can make the World Cup’s crowning achievement echo beyond the final whistle. We can make global education football’s greatest goal of all.

So, before you return to your own teams, sign your name and make us believe we are all part of something bigger. Sign your name and make us believe we are all part of one team: 1 GOAL.

Thank you.

http://www.join1goal.org/