The joke's on us: Media hypes spoof Ronaldo story

A mock story about Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo missing his plane while buying a Cinnabon made the rounds at popular world media outlets, including RT. But most have been left with egg on their faces as the story turned out to be a canard.

A great number of world media outlets, including RT mistakenly reported a spoof story about Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo missing his plane while at Ukraine’s Donetsk airport. Ronaldo was headed home after his team lost in the semi-finals of the Euro 2012, only to reportedly miss his flight when a Cinnabon craving lead him away from the tarmac and onto the snack bar. 

The 27-year-old Real Madrid player was then said to have spent several hours stranded in the airport as a result of his sweet tooth getting the best of him. Unfortunately, this deliciously funny story got the best of many in the world media satisfying their own cravings, RT included.

The Portuguese football federation has officially stated that the story is untrue, though the humor of how the world was made to believe that Portugal’s most expensive football star could be “forgotten” in the airport was not lost on them. 

It appears that the canard was born at EFE, the world's fourth largest news agency and the biggest Spanish-language media outlet on the planet. Referring to “Ukraine’s Euro-2012 information center”, the news agency presented the Ronaldo bun story as the real deal. 

After being published by a reliable news agency, the story spread like wildfire, mostly throughout Latin America and Spain itself. But the lark really spread its wings after finding its way onto Twitter. 

Sports media outlets in Argentina, Brazil, France, Mexico, Russia and Spain all helped to make the “Ronaldo bun” story a hit with hundreds of Google search results. Like RT, Fox Sports and ESPN Brazil also fell for the Cinnabon charade. But once the truth emerged, the public that willingly laughed at the unlucky football star redirected their wit and ire at the credulous media with a vengeance.

And while many in the media poked fun at Ronaldo for his apparent misfortune yesterday, now that the truth has come out, the decorated striker will have the last laugh.