The losing World Cup teams and fans are licking their wounds, while newly crowned world champions Germany will celebrate for at least the next four years. However, the world has already started to ask…
In a tournament of 64 games, there were bound to be issues of contention, especially in a competition that carries so many national hopes with it. But the general standard of refereeing has been good throughout…
As rival football teams have been battling it out in this year’s World Cup, cyber criminals have had their eye on a different goal – to cash in on this global distraction at any opportunity. Among the…
After four weeks, we’re finally at the pointy end of the 2014 World Cup. Germany and Argentina meet in the final in the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro this weekend. Germany is riding high after thrashing…
FIFA, world football’s governing body, is not a perfect multinational corporation. It would be quite naïve to envisage that the World Cup should have the capacity to bring world peace, fix global inequality…
The shock, disappointment and shame felt in Brazil after their humiliating semi-final defeat to Germany has been apparent for all to see. In fact, the despair that the defeat caused both team and their…
The extraordinary 7-1 defeat of Brazil by Germany in the World Cup semi-final is richly ironic. Many Brazilians had hoped that by hosting the World Cup in 2014, their country could finally exorcise the…
The media coverage of Brazil’s 2014 World Cup – in the UK at least – emphasises the familiar. The BBC has given the impression of a competition largely taking place in Rio de Janeiro. The city’s Avenida…
Brazil 1, Germany 7. Very few people would have thought such a result was possible, especially in a World Cup semi-final where both teams would be anxious to succeed. Both teams had been on a journey of…
It is entirely predictable that the famous Audi advertisement and its tagline, “Vorsprung durch Technik”, came to mind while watching Germany’s epic World Cup victory over Brazil. In fact, using this tagline…
World Cup 2014 has been described by many as the best ever for the exciting play and huge number of goals. And, as the tournament has progressed, the drama has increased, with hard fought games going to…
On Saturday night, just hours before the latest quarter-finals of the World Cup, viewers watching SBS World News were exposed to over two and a half minutes of marketing for Coca-Cola. And that’s not even…
The 2014 World Cup and the Confederations Cup before it have acted as a catalyst for discontent being expressed by a broad sector of Brazilian society that feels indignant about the money spent on these…
Football clubs around the world have recently been making some highly visible but immobile new signings. Over 350 statues of footballers, managers, chairmen and even fans now stand outside stadiums and…
As the World Cup reaches its climax, with Brazil, Germany, Argentina and the Netherlands to fight it out for a spot in the final, can we explain why some countries have been successful at the highest level…
Parlour game time. Who has been the best player at the 2014 World Cup finals? The usual suspects are all here: the now-stricken Neymar, the great Messi, even the non-stop German false number nine, Muller…
It was a fearsome blow. It was the first World Cup after World War II, on home soil, and the country was desperate for international recognition. Brazil reached the final, only to lose 2-1 in a shock defeat…
This year’s World Cup was supposed to be the “greenest ever”, with FIFA taking measures to account for the event’s greenhouse gas emissions, including an estimated 2.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide…
An interesting media flip-flop took place this week. Cameroon went from being forced to investigate match-fixing claims made in German news magazine Der Spiegel to FIFA saying there was no evidence of…
In the run up to the World Cup, the scene depicted in Brazil by the international press was split between two simple narratives. On one hand: disaster, with protests against the tournament gaining much…