LONDON (Reuters) -- The weekly news magazine Time said Wednesday it was forced to investigate after a little-known Irish soccer player appeared to have topped its poll to find the person of the century.
Ronnie O'Brien, formerly of the English club Middlesborough, looked to come out ahead of John F. Kennedy and Mother Teresa to take provisional top spot in the survey on Time's Internet edition when the poll crashed as the result of too many "hits."But it seems the flurry of votes were not in fact cast for the 20-year-old midfielder, now with the Italian club Juventus.
"When the system crashes, it scrambles results," Time.com editor Richard Duncan told Reuters. "But there's no sign that a huge number of people logged on to power him up the list." After more than 12 hours as provisional man of the century, O'Brien was withdrawn from top spot and relegated to the also-rans.
Could he return to the top of the pile?
"It's possible, I suppose," Duncan said. "Strange things happen on the Internet."