The Onion satire claims another victim….

So only a few days ago we reported on tabloid paper The Daily Mail reporting on a satirical article as if it were fact before slyly removing their article once they realised they had been duped.

They must have hoped no one took any notice, but they did. Read the story here.

Well satire as fooled once again this week, in an even more hilarious fashion. Only this time, the victim is former Fifa VP Jack Warner, and the satirical publication belongs to The Onion, possibly the Internet’s most well-known source of satire.

Warner is one of 14 Fifa officials charged with corruption, so the last thing he really wants to be doing right now is going public and making an utter fool of himself, which is exactly what he did. No doubt few PR firms would relish the chance of working with him right now.

During a video statement to his own website, warner.tv, Warner questioned why an impromptu FIFA World Cup was being held in the U.S. this summer, since it was the U.S. who filed charges of corruption against the sporting body and himself.

Well, in reality there is no FIFA World Cup being held in the U.S. this summer. The entire report was a joke from satirical website The Onion. In fact, it was all a pretty obvious joke, since, amongst other claims, the faux report claimed the competition’s official logo would be a “a hand-drawn stick figure kicking a soccer ball with USA 2015! hastily scribbled in black marker above its head.” as well as the claim that the first game had already kicked off between USA and Germany, with the hosts being awarded “12 penalties in the game’s first 3 minutes”

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To add insult to injury time, Warner proceeded to present a print-out of the satirical article for the camera as he referred to its contents, making it a worthy contender of the most obvious example of being hoodwinked by satire in the history of PR blunders.

Warner was mocked pretty mercilessly online, and the video was eventually replaced by an edited version sans The Onion reference, but not before someone copied the video and placed it on YouTube. Yes, you can watch it here, reference to satire beginning at around the 4.55 mark.

The only question here really is what analogy best serves this entire fiasco, a PR own goal or missed penalty? You decide.