Twitter lights up for rival '#WordCup'

Yekaterinburg (Russia) (AFP) – While millions of people are tuning in to watch the World Cup and commenting about it online, thousands more on Twitter are talking about what appears to be a similar but equally riveting event, the #WordCup.

“In #Paris, where cafe seating famously faces the street for optimal people-watching, chairs are turned inward today to catch a glimpse of France in the #WordCup!” exclaimed one Twitter user.

Another, possibly a little the worse for wear, wrote: “The only #WordCup I care to see is when my cup is running over with whiskey.”

Even one prominent American news organisation got in on the act: “Panama made the #WordCup for the first time then drew Belgium for its opening match.”

There were more than 2,000 tweets about “#WordCup2018” on Monday, before the day’s three matches had even begun, with dozens more coming in by the hour. 

Twitter users were of course talking about the football World Cup in Russia, but had misspelt the word.

It has echoes of the Winter Olympics in South Korea earlier this year.

They took place in Pyeongchang, but thousands of people on Twitter wrote about Pyongyang — capital of North Korea. 

Following the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Twitter said there were 672 million tweets sent related to the 2014 #WorldCup, making it what the social media network called at the time “the highest number we’ve announced related to an event”.