People love pranks. It is a comedic style as old as time itself, with countless different TV shows and celebrities becoming well-known almost entirely thanks to the willingness of the participants to push things as far as they could.
For two teenagers in England, that ended up resulting in the signing of a mediocre player by a Major League Soccer team, with the player himself then seeing his career take off as a result.
The player in question was Alexander López, who played for Honduran side CD Olimpia before being transferred to the Houston Dynamo for $1 million.
The Pranksters
Kieran Morris and a friend loved playing pranks. They had watched the work of Chris Morris (no relation) and learned that you could get the likes of politicians, celebrities and even journalists to all but do your bidding, all by being willing to call them up and act with confidence.
At the age of 13, the United Kingdom’s general election was approaching, so Kieran Morris called the Hilton Hotel in Westminster under the guise of David Cameron’s Chief of Staff, making out as if he wanted a celebration party organised in the event of the Conservative Party’s victory, complete with a huge banquet.
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The requests had been sent by Morris from his school email address, with the prank rumbled when the school was called the following morning and asked to pay a £10,000 deposit for the party. Morris was nearly expelled, but the taste for pranking had been well and truly engaged.
What followed were numerous low-level pranks, such as getting their names associated with little-known indie bands. Once they persuaded local newspapers that Birmingham City were about to sign William Gallas, to the point that the club’s manager at the time, Alex McLeish had to deny it live on Sky Sports News.
How Alexander López’s Name Got Linked
The Summer Olympics were being held in London in 2012, giving Morris and his friend a reason to pick a team to follow in the football tournament. The team they picked was Honduras, focussing their support on the team’s number 10, Alexander López.
They soon began to alter the 19-year-old’s Wikipedia page, increasing the number of goals he had scored from three to 11, whilst adding in the ides that he had notched up 20 assists. The story of his career suggested that he’d had trials at Napoli, Malaga and even Tottenham Hotspur, whilst the claims were that supporters called him the ‘Honduran Maradona’.
@foxdeportes GOLAZO DE TIRO LIBRE. 😎 Alex López con la excelente ejecución contra Motagua. #HondurasEnFOX ♬ sonido original – FOX Deportes
Next up, the pair wanted to convince the British press that a team was interested in signing López, so they chose Wigan Athletic as their victims, on account of the fact that they had already signed Honduran players in the past. Soon, a newspaper printed that Wigan Athletic had ‘agreed a £2.5 million deal’ for López’s signature.
They kept on altering his page, so by the July of 2013 he had 18 goals and 34 assists, making him as good as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the same age. Then, in the August, it was confirmed that Houston Dynamo, a Major League Soccer Team, had signed him for $1 million.
The Real Story
Whilst all of the above definitely happened, the good news for Morris and his friend is that they had no need to feel any guilt over the fact that López had been signed by an American football team. That is to say, the Houston Dynamo had not signed him simply because of their alterations to his Wikipedia page.
Instead, Morris flew out to Houston in order to discuss the matter familiar with the situation and discovered that the club had actually been keeping tabs on López’s career, having been tipped about the player’s ability by a former Dynamo player from Honduras, Óscar Boniek García.
Golazo de Alex López con Honduras ¡Qué 🥒 ! pic.twitter.com/6JvKoktu39
— TD Más (@tdmascrc) March 24, 2021
They looked over the player’s games, investigated his impact on the club and found out about his personality. It felt like the right decision to sign him, so they did. The player himself assisted a goal in his first game with the club, but things went downhill from there. Eventually, it was decided that he should move to Saudi Arabia, being signed by Al-Khaleej before returning to Honduras six months later.
He later moved to Costa Rica, winning the 30th league title of LD Alajuelense in 2020 and the CONCACAF League, defeating their bitter rivals in the process. Not bad for a story that began as nothing more than a prank between friends.