April Fool’s Day is a minefield online, as the ease with with a prank can spread under the guise of truth is well-known. As such, football clubs take advantage of the day, taking the chance to indulge in some light-hearted ribbing with their fans usually the targets.
Here are some of the best football pranks this year
1) Arsenal’s retractable sunroof over the Emirates
Arsenal have a history of elaborate April Fool’s pranks, as they produced a slick video last season to announce a ‘left-footed’ ball. The Gunners were at it again this season, ‘partnering’ with French car-manufacturer Citroen to announce a ‘reatractable’ roof over the Emirates.
The Gunner’s twitter account made known the ‘world’s first retractable sunroof’ over the Emirates stadium, an elaborate prank on the Gunner’s fans that made use of a professional-looking video to provide credibility. There were plently of hints, though, such as the ‘project manager’ being named ‘William daRoufe’ or Bill daRoufe, which phonetically sounds like ‘build a roof’.
Complete with bogus facts such as ‘It will save us 4-6 goals every season’, ‘We will have 8% more stamina from reduced sun exposure’, Arsenal used their players to lend some credibility to the video, namely Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny.
Here is the video that Arsenal shared on their Twitter handle:
2) Liverpool employ world’s most annoying chauffeur
Liverpool TV posted a rather funny video on their YouTube channel, as the Merseysiders were aided by fullback Jon Flanagan who decided to prank an unsuspecting Simon Mignolet and Lucas Leiva.
Flanagan masterminded the entire prank, using an actor to perform the role of the world’s worst chauffeur. The ‘chaffeur’ starts off by being unaware of Anfield’s location and the status of the footballers entirely. The actor then proceeds to annoy Simon Mignolet with his singing and takes things to a next level by making the Belgian goalkeeper sing.
The ‘chaffeur’ capped it all off by stopping to pick up dog food, thus proceeding to annoy the Liverpool stars who assumed that they were on the way to a Vauxhall photo-call, with Lucas Leiva complaining to the press office via text.
Here is a video of the entire exchange:
3) Manchester City’s Fabian Delph trolls interviewer
Usually, it’s the club’s press office indulging in April Fool’s pranks, although this time the tables were turned as Fabian Delph pranked an interviewer from the club’s TV Channel. The Manchester City midfielder was convinced by the reporter’s colleagues to indulge in the prank, with some hilarious results.
Fabian Delph has missed the last two months of the season with an Achilles injury, and when asked by club reporter Nicola McCarthy an innoucuous question about his return, Delph ‘reacted badly’ and ‘stormed out’, displaying some great acting skills as his upset reaction had McCarthy shocked and worried.
Delph returned to reveal the prank leading to a priceless reaction from McCarthy that ought to be seen.
Thankfully, Manchester City have provided the footage on their YouTube channel:
4) Rio Ferdinand pranks Manchester United fans
Rio Ferdinand is a rather prolific tweeter and has countless Manchester United fans hanging on his entire word. However, the most expensive centre-back for his time came up with the most elaborate prank on April Fool’s day to troll his legions of followers on Twitter.
Ferdinand tweeted an image of him in formal clothing stepping onto the Old Trafford pitch with the accompanying words implying a move to management. Given Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal’s tenuous grip on the Old Trafford hotseat, Ferdinand’s tweet had a ring of posssible truth to it.
However, Ferdinand revealed his prank soon after, although the tragi-comedy nature of many Manchester United fans reacting with glee at his ‘appointment’ is there for all to see.
5) Barcelona and Real Madrid to launch cricket teams
While Barcelona and Real Madrid refrained from carrying out some pranks themselves, given the rather serious matter of El Clasico on the horizon, that did not stop the Spanish press from indulging in some otherworldy April Fool’s prank.
Barcelona and Real Madrid already have basketball teams under the same name, and Spanish outlet AS decided that April Fool’s Day was the perfect occasion to announce that the Spanish giants were set on launching cricket clubs under their world-famous names.
With fake ‘quotes’ such as the following, AS played possibly the most funny prank of April Fool’s Day:
“Messi is loving batting”, says Barça cricket coach Whadai Isit, from India, “though he kept getting run out at first as he’d go off on these scampering zig-zag runs between the wickets. He’s got the hang of running in a straight line now though”
These guys are all natural sportsmen”, said one of the coaches at Real Madrid, Australian Paul Yaleg, “they’ve taken to it like ducks to water… once they realised thattrying to field solid cricket balls going at 100mph with just your foot can be very painful.”
Kudos to AS for pranking Indian football fans. Although one does wish this was one of the few that did come true.
