World leaders become #WorldCup fans

Friday, 11 July 2014

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a new side to world leaders on Twitter. The reason for their passionate, heartfelt Tweets? #WorldCup fever, of course.

Since the opening game of the #WorldCup, Twitter connected the millions of fans at home and all the teams in Brazil. And it turns out that many heads of state and government ministers are among these enthusiastic fans.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel went to Brazil in person, but fans of @dfb_team got a glimpse into the visit thank to Tweets from her spokesperson Steffen Seibert (@Regsprecher). He tweeted this photo of her visiting the German team’s locker room after their win against Portugal (@selecaoportugal):

The Dutch government soon followed with their own behind-the-scenes Tweet:

And US @VP Biden took part as well:

World leaders who couldn’t get to Brazil used Vine to share their messages to the teams:


German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (@AuswaertigesAmt) was especially active on Vine, and the #GER team showed their appreciation for his support:



Generally foreign ministers use Twitter to discuss diplomatic matters, but when their football teams met each other in the quarter-final, the Twitter conversation was dominated by #WorldCup content. A few hours before the #FRAvsGER match, Foreign Minister Steinmeier (@AuswaertigesAmt) and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (@LaurentFabius) engaged in some friendly banter:


And Belgian Prime Minister Di Rupo (@ElioDiRupo) challenged President Obama ahead of the #BELvUSA game:

With #ARG also headed to the final, Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) used Twitter to thank Dilma Rousseff (@Dilmabr) for #BRA’s hosting:

To get a sense of which countries other football fans around the world are most interested in, take a look at our recent visualizations of country-by-country activity. 

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Note: This post originally appeared on the Twitter Germany blog.