May 31, 2015
In a move that surely won't help the credibility of FIFA, the soccer organization's former vice president cited a fictional article from The Onion in his rebuke of the United States.
Jack Warner is among fourteen officials indicted last week by the U.S. Justice Department on charges of corruption and bribery. Unhappy with his portrayal by the United States and desperate for any kind of hypocrisy to exploit, Warner took to Facebook with an 8-minute video to clear his reputation, ESPN FC reports.
Warner was unfortunately oblivious to The Onion, a humor publication famous for fooling people with fabricated news reports.
In the video, which has since been deleted, Warner held up a printout with The Onion headline, "FIFA Frantically Announces 2015 Summer World Cup in United States," a story published hours after his arrest in Trinidad. Railing against the U.S. "double standard" in hosting an event by an organization whose leadership it has placed in legal hot water, Warner stepped right into the trap.
There will be no 2015 Summer World Cup in the United States, to be extra clear.