As a child, I played soccer fervently. My father, a German immigrant to the U.S. who was very passionate about the sport, explained to me that there is no game that brings the world closer together. He further explained that this team sport could not be experienced alone as it needed to be enjoyed as a community and wove us all together in an inextricable way. To my father, soccer was a great equalizer among societies, people and investments. He felt that soccer taught us that rich countries didn’t always win and societal ranking was no guarantee of high status – soccer was meant to provide a shared worldwide experience to which we could all relate.
With an estimated viewing audience of over 3.2 billion globally (roughly 50 percent of the world’s population), not only does the 2014 World Cup provide that shared experience, it draws a large amount of viewers to television screens around the world and a fair amount of advertisers as well. Given all of this rich history and fervor, it’s no surprise that this makes a great venue for idealistic (and perhaps nefarious) actors, such as the hacking collective Group Anonymous, to solicit new recruits to their struggles.