If you were one of the many who rightly wondered whether Malta was getting its priorities wrong by co-bidding for the 2026 World Cup, you need not worry – you’ve been fooled.

The April Fool’s joke on timesofmalta.com claimed Malta and Cyprus were planning a bid to win the right to host the world’s biggest sports tournament.

Many failed to spot the joke despite the story citing a fictional sheikh by the name of Itz Ajouk who was willing to invest as much as €200 million for the Malta bid.

Thousands viewed the item, which was fast disseminated on social forums like Facebook and Twitter.

Some readers saw the funny side to the claim that one of the stadiums would be built on the Maghtab landfill. One reader commented “Teams from most countries would have to endure months of rigorous high altitude training prior to the onset of a 90 minute ordeal on Mt. Maghtab.”

But hundreds of other readers failed to fall for the joke, with one reader saying “.....then again, it is the first of April, so I guess we are stuck with the maghtab dump for a while longer :-) “

Many news organisations around the world traditionally play a joke on their readers on April 1.

The Guardian went as far as to first claim that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange would be invited to Prince William’s wedding ceremony to Kate Middleton and then later even say that the Royal Wedding had been called off. A typical Daily Mirror joke was about teh British government’s plan to tax fresh air. The Mirror said the British government was planning to introduce a new tax – on clean air!

Read the story at:

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110401/local/malta-to-co-bid-for-2026-world-cup