Want to know the fastest way to piss off an entire country? Desecrate a major religious site and the sport that they treat like a religion at the same damn time. A television commercial in Italy for the 2014 World Cup features Christ the Redeemer (one of the most famous religious statues in the world) towering over Rio de Janeiro in an Italian football jersey.
For the not-so geographically inclined, Rio de Janeiro is the capital city of the second largest city in Brazil. Add that to the fact that it's a 130-foot-tall statue of Jesus, and you can see why some people would be upset. According to Telegraph, the Catholic Church of Brazil has called the ad "disrespectful and inappropriate" and the Archdiocese of Rio is threatening to sue. "It’s as if Brazilian TV were to make a commercial in which mulatto girls engaged in lewd behaviour with the gladiators of the Colosseum," said lawyer for the church Rodrigo Grazioli.
The commercial also features the words "Power is nothing without control" and "Brazil awaits us."
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[via Telegraph]
