West Ham co-chairman David Gold has been caught napping by a sharp-witted prankster who tweeted a 'missing' message regarding winger Michail Antonio.
The former Nottingham Forest player is yet to start a game for the Hammers since his £7million move from Forest back in August. And yesterday, Twitter user @Jasipai sent a message to Gold asking for help locating his missing "mate", who he claimed had gone "missing in Manchester".What Gold - who instantly retweeted the message - failed to spot however is that the picture of his "mate" was actually Hammers winger Antonio, whose last appearance came as a 60th-minute substitute in the 2-1 win at Manchester City on 19th September.
Gold removed his re-tweet just as soon as the prank was revealed. However it wasn't the first time West Ham's 79-year-old co-owner has experienced problems with social media, for in July 2014 he was forced to apologise after accidentally re-tweeting a message calling for the dismissal of then-manager Sam Allardyce.
@davidgold please RT trying to raise awareness for my mate who went missing in Manchester a few weeks ago pic.twitter.com/H8V5aGirId
— repsaJ (@Jasipai) November 4, 2015"After a 33 hour flight from New Zealand, I was in my car scanning through my tweets and it seems I accidently favourited one," he explained at the time.
"I should clarify that I did not and would never deliberately or intentionally endorse a tweet that questions our manager's position. Lesson: don't use twitter when you're jet lagged!"
More recently, in February of this year, Gold came under fire from some West Ham supporters for tweeting a message urging supporters "don't go to bed" in anticipation of an eleventh-hour transfer deadline day deal that failed to materialise.
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