The World Cup as Information Space

So now it’s over, and while for many in the US it was all a bit hard to understand, for the rest of the world this competition is the highlight of the sporting calendar. Forget the results however, there were several fascinating informational aspects to this year’s cup that should be noted. Leaving aside the quaint refusal of soccer authorities to employ video technology to help decision making for penalties and goalmouth clearances while allowing referees for the first time to sport earpieces to hear the off-field official provide another perspective, this was really the World Cup where the web shaped the tournament.

The BBC ran a number of blogs and discussion lists that had huge traffic. When England lost (again) to Portugal the conversation turned more than a little unpleasant as the more rabid fans blamed ‘Johnny Foreigner’ for all kinds of cheating that of course took away all the blame from the English team (but not their manager who as a Swede could be conveniently pilloried). Chief culprit was a talented Portugese named Christian Ronaldo. His crime was not that he scored the winning penalty (that would be too obvious) but that he supposedly led to England’s star turn, Wayne “Nice Boy” Rooney being sent off. Leaving logic aside (Rooney had landed his foot in the most sensitive area of another Portugese player’s anatomy resulting in a red card), Ronaldo soon became the “cause” of this dismissal (in the mind of some) because he complained about it to the referee. The ref claims this had nothing to do with his decision but before you knew it a hate campaign had been launched on the web. When FIFA put out a poll for votes on the Young Player of the Tournament, Ronaldo was a favorite given his performances. Soon the various football sites were full of messages telling people to vote against him with the result that within two days his lead was slashed and a lesser known Ecuadorian (whom most people could not name) was the top vote. FIFA, with cunning insight, spotted the problem and gave the award to another player entirely, but that’s another story. Result: Smart Mobs 1-0 Fair Play.

But of course, even as the threats to Ronaldo took on such a toxic tone that he even spoke of leaving his club in England to get away from the hostility (I kid you not), we have Zidane, also known now as “Zid Vicious”, claiming spoken insults about his family pushed him over the edge in the final. Again, the ref did not see the headbutt but TV cameras did and showed it repeatedly. Various channels then proceeded to bring in lip-reading experts to decipher what is was that Italian defender really said to him. Of course, just like consultants, put two in a room and you get three opinions, there was zero agreement between the various ‘experts’ and both players are not revealing exactly what was said but you get the idea — one moment of insanity in your life and thanks to technology it can all be captured, replayed and analyzed for years. Now wasn’t this one of the big exciting ideas that a new sexier CS was promising us? And the result?….oh, soccer lost.