It's April Fools day, which in these days really just means you can't believe a single thing you read on the internet, unless you've got that one friend or colleague who just loves to piss people off.
To celebrate this most frustrating of days, we at Balls.ie want to make you feel better for having your can of coke shaken before you opened it, dumped a whole heap of salt over your lunch because someone unscrewed the lid, or whatever may have happened to you because today is the first day of April, by bringing you seven times that footballers were on the receiving end of a good old fashioned prank.
Celtic players cover Mo Bangura's car in post-it notes.
Joe Ledley, Kris Commons, and Scott Brown decided that the return of Mo Bangura to his former club AIK Solna on loan back in 2012 was enough of a reason to deface the poor man's lovely Audi in post-it notes.
David Luiz is convinced he badly injured employee in a bowling alley.
This one was perhaps a bit mean and left the Brazil international in tears. When killing time at a bowling alley, Luiz was ordered to wait while an alley employee fixed an issue with the pins, with the coast clear Luiz then took his shot, only to hear screams and see a man emerge covered in blood. Then the blame game began.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh24HuLcb1M
For being a good sport Luiz was later given the chance to prank his then team-mate Angel Di Maria, but the Argentine seemed to cop on fairly quickly to what was going on.
Frank De Boer and Ajax players shown utterly horrific new kits.
Nobody was emotionally scarred by this one, but a great idea from the Adidas marketing team resulted in the Ajax manager and players such as Daley Blind believing the new Ajax away kits were going to be an absolute eyesore.
Glen Whelan and Stoke team-mates put a pig's head in Kenwyne Jones' locker.
This one got some publicity for the reaction more than anything, as when Glen Whelan posted a picture on twitter of his team-mates wrapping a pig's head in Kenwyne Jones' clothes, the Irish international had his windscreen smashed by the big striker. It was all cleared up in the end after Whelan's name was cleared and Jones apologised.
Kyle Walker scares the shit out of Spurs players on Halloween.
Spurs TV had a bit of fun by dressing Kyle Walker up in a grim reaper suit and leaving him alone in a room with Spurs players waiting for a fake interview.
John Hartson's Armani suit burned in a bin on his first day at Wimbledon.
The Crazy Gang at Wimbledon were a bunch of absolute maniacs and practical jokers, but most of their shenanigans were sworn to secrecy. That could not be said of the mid-90's Wimbledon that John Hartson agreed to join, as the pyromaniac Dons gave him a welcome to remember.
On my first day as a Wimbledon player I decided to come in nice and tidy, with my Armani suit on. To be honest, the label didn't mean anything to the lads, it could have been from Marks & Spencer for all they cared. I went out to train before the press conference and a few of the injured lads – Ben Thatcher, Carl Leaburn and Jason Euell – decided to have a bit of fun.
We were coming back in from training and there was this almighty fire hanging out of the window. I was thinking, "Jesus Christ, the dressing room is on fire!" But there was no fire alarm going off and everyone seemed to be laughing their heads off. As I got closer to the dressing room I saw that it was my suit that they were actually burning. I just couldn't believe it and, of course, it was all the clothes I had with me. I had nothing to put on after the training session so I ended up wearing a pair of Wimbledon training shorts to the press conference that day. I never got the suit back, I never got the expenses back, but that was all just part of it.
via The Guardian.
Joe Hart gets a shock in Brazil courtesy of Gary Cahill and Fraser Forster.
The England players were so bored in the team hotel during the Brazil 2014 World Cup that they agreed to film a behind the series youtube show for FA TV, it wasn't good. At least they gave Joe Hart a good shock.
Note: We deliberately left out the Rio Ferdinand pranks from this list because of the word "Merk'd".