Ryanair do an Arsenal funny in worst example of tiresome social media trend | OneFootball

We bet you didn’t know that as well as providing cheap flights to a plethora of European cities at ungodly hours, Ryanair are also a bloody good laugh.

They did a funny on social media. You know how Mikel Arteta hasn’t won a trophy since 2020 and has finished second in the Premier League for three years in a row, yeah? Well get this. It’s his birthday today and the Irish airline noted that as cause for celebration and would have had us rolling in one of their aisles if it didn’t come with a hidden surcharge.

Good one, Ryanair. We knew you were one of the lads. D’you know what, our ribs have been tickled sufficiently that we’re jolly well gonna go and book that £10 flight to Tbilisi (rising to £300 with add-ons).

We shouldn’t have expected any less from a company with an X bio reading ‘catch flights, not feelings with Europe’s favourite airline’, whose previous witty posts this month include ‘Dwayne’s gone to Turkey’ in reference to The Rock’s flowing locks for the live-action Moana film and asking if Tom Holland will pay to sit with Zendaya after they got married. Such a hoot.

Zero mention on the socials of the mid-air state emergency called by one of their flights on Wednesday, but good to see Miley Cyrus recreating a viral Hannah Montana meme on their feed.

It’s the sort of post – written in lower case to ensure we all know that they’re carefree guys who don’t play by The Man’s rules – that would get no interaction whatsoever if your average fan did it. A blue-ticked individual of some renown would be destroyed. Because – and this is the absolute key here – it’s not funny.

The 100k likes and 11k reposts and counting are down to the shock factor of a big company taking pot shots at a football club. Unfortunately, rival fans love it.

The comment section is filled with a mixture of cry-laughing emojis and references to Arsenal being ‘cooked’ by Ryanair, and Gooners hitting out at the airline and calling for a boycott until Skyscanner reveals it really is the cheapest way to get to Benidorm. It’s an ‘any press is good press’ situation.

It’s also unoriginal. We had the Pizza Hut war of words with Leeds United in 2019 during ‘Spygate’ and the maddest of all company interactions with football clubs in 2021 when Dulux mocked Tottenham’s empty trophy cabinet after announcing their partnership as their official paint supplier.

There’s at least some humour in those though. The back and forth between Leeds and Pizza Express’ inferior prompted smiles, maybe even a titter, and we enjoyed the sheer brass balls on the keyboard warrior of an Old English Sheepdog.

But Ryanair’s dig at Arteta is nothing but the cheapest of all ways to exploit football and football fans for social media interactions, which would serve to turn us all into Arsenal fans and have us rooting for them until the end of the season if there wasn’t a risk of a Gunners response on X to grant Ryanair precisely what they want from this ultimately harmless but entirely humourless scourge of social media.