Category Archives: Soccer/Football

The Global Game of Football

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Source: Statista

Often referred to as the global game, football (i.e. soccer) is played, followed and talked about in almost every corner of planet earth. The sport’s biggest event, the quadrennial FIFA World Cup, is one of the biggest sporting events in the world, only matched by the Olympics in terms of its near universal reach. According to FIFA, 3.2 billion people watch at least one minute of World Cup coverage on TV in 2014, a number that will likely be matched by this year’s tournament in Russia.

The following chart, based on a Nielsen survey conducted in more than 20 international markets, shows where people are particularly fond of the global game and where interest in football is limited at best.

Where the World Cup Threatens Productivity the Most

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Source: Statista

While football fans around the world are looking forward to the FIFA World Cup bringing them a month of excitement, employers are not quite as thrilled about their workers being distracted by the daily dose of World Cup drama.

64 matches crammed into roughly four weeks offer plenty of room for distraction, especially when several of these matches kick off during regular working hours. And while casual fans may be content with watching the odd game here and there, hardcore World Cup enthusiasts have the ambition to watch any match, regardless if the teams are Brazil and Germany or Tunisia and Panama.

How large the potential effect of the FIFA World Cup on productivity at the workplace is, depends largely on the time zone. While bosses in large parts of Asia and Australia can relax because of the games starting at night, Brazilian employees should probably cut their workers some slack over the next few weeks: because of the time difference more than 60 hours of World Cup action will be played during regular working hours in Rio.