Brazilian Protestors Bare All Against Soccer's Ubiquity

When one thinks of Brazilians and the World Cup, the usual image which springs to mind is the co-ordinated shaking of yellow and green-clad booties, gyrating in a celebration of the samba style and beautiful game for which the Selecao is famous for.

Such is the nation's affinity with soccer; one would not imagine any Brazilians protesting against the sport. And especially not while naked.

But this is what allegedly happened in a Brazilian city during the last 16 clash between the Selecao and Ghana. While the World Cup is enthralling most of Germany, and much of Europe, the three men walked around a Brazilian city in the buff while locals watched the match.

The three streakers-with-a-social-conscience staged the protest because they disagreed with how "the whole country stops to watch the football matches during the World Cup, while enormous problems in Brazil -- like a lack of education among many people and a poor health system -- keep getting worse."

Unfortunately for the exhibitionist crusaders, being in the tiny majority of Brazilians who had time to think about the country's problems while Ronaldo and Co. went about their business meant that no-one actually took a blind bit of notice. Three naked campaigners shaking their bits in protest could never compete with a rapturous crowd watching their heroes.

Even the local cops let them get on with it. "Someone called to tell us to check the protest out, but since it was not a violent crime and we were watching the match at the time, we decided not to do anything about it," a local police spokesperson reported.

"They only wanted to get attention, but they couldn't even get this as everyone was watching the match," the spokesperson added.