According to the website www.worldatlas.com, the most popular sport globally is soccer, with 3.5 billion fans around the world. Considering that the current global population exceeds 8 billion people, the result is that almost half of the men and women inhabiting the world have an affinity for soccer.

Beyond what this means for the so-called sports-entertainment (and the hundreds of billions of dollars generated with each national and international competition, FIFA World Cups, advertising, and campaigns around media-renowned figures like Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappé, Neymar, etc.), the fact that almost half of the population considers itself a soccer fan leads us to think about the social and attitudinal models that this sport promotes or should promote.

If soccer is characterized by a proper application of rules, adherence to them, fair and impartial referees applying regulations objectively without considering the economic, political, or popularity level of the involved teams, then it exerts a positive influence among its millions of followers.

If, on the contrary, soccer involves match-fixing, questionable referee performances, pressures on executives, and, in general, a dominance of economic aspects over purely sporting ones, the influence on the audience can be very negative, especially among children and adolescents, as many of them even see it as a possible way of life.

Therefore, soccer impacts social responsibility, as well as human rights and basic social and democratic values such as respect, tolerance, compliance with laws, and adherence to justice. Hence, the need to analyze this aspect of the sport, which is so socially relevant.

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