Hello! I hate soccer or football and I am Brazilian :P

But uh, I wouldn't say that it shouldn't be taken seriously. It changes lives and living in a country where it plays an important role, I can see the ups and downs of it. 

Ups: It creates programmes to help poor kids to get involved in a hobby and maybe take it further and become a way to make money in order to get by. 

A nation or the world needs to have entertainment and making this entertainment an official activity where it involves even the politics of the country, be sure, it's simply not just a game, it's a way to improve a society and even the economy of the countries that support it. The World Cup is bringing a lot of good things to Brazil, a lot of tourists come and spend money everywhere. It created jobs and will definitely be positive in many aspects to the Brazilian people. 

Downs:

Corruption!!! As any other official activity where it's involved politicians and ambition, a lot of corruption and inequality take place. 

Abusrds like, a soccer player that probably never sat on a college or university chair, making more money than a teacher or any other profession out there. I think the salaries that are paid to those players shouldn't be that extremely high, it just does not make sense.

Violence: Since it's a competition, the supporters also compete between each other and there are zillions of cases where people fight, discuss, kill each other because of their favourite teams. 

And so on, I won't write too much but basically that's what I think! 

i see that your way it's very intersting to practice language , and you choose a current topic  and that great . so i agree with your opinion and this imoprtance how give to world cup i found it so over . 
P.S : catherine am not good in english so i thing that i did a lot of  errors :).

Thanks.