Zidane butt of Spanish joke

2006-12-28 20:25

Geneva - A Spanish newspaper claimed on Thursday that Zinedine Zidane should have been named as World Footballer of the Year and not Italian World Cup winner Fabio Cannavaro after a voting blunder.

However, it was all an elaborate joke played by the Marca sports paper on the Day of the Innocents, Spain's equivalent of April Fool's Day.

Fifa, the sport's world governing body, decided to take the story in good faith.

"Every country and region has its own time-honoured customs and traditions, many of them involving practical jokes. With the advent of the Internet, such traditions can also create quite some confusion," said a Fifa statement.

"The Spanish sports paper Marca published a story on its website regarding the Fifa World Player. Marca alleged that Fifa had recounted the votes after admitting errors and would give the award to Zidane instead of Cannavaro. This story is, of course, completely invented and a joke.

"As a matter of fact, Marca was quite successful - not in Spain, but abroad. While no Spanish media contacted us, the Fifa Media Office still received quite a few phone calls.

"The honour of the first such call fell to a Norwegian journalist which proves how much the internet has also done for the promotion of cross-border coverage of international football. Following closely were several Italian journalists and an assortment of international media."

- AFP