Football: Clickbait headlines and Chinese super mega offers galore

The January transfer window has been fun so far, hasn’t it? I bet secretly Sky Sports are regretting the decision to turn the TOTALISER on at this point. “Look at the bloody electricity bill!” The reality is that most sides only use the winter window if they lose a key player to injury or they’re fighting for their lives and the current squad isn’t quite good enough. Very few eye-catching deals happen but that doesn’t quench people’s thirst for news and pipe dreams, does it?

[Messi never gave Coach interview says his father]

We were treated to the joy of Chinese Super League ‘mega offers’ for the first couple of weeks of this month but the change in rules regarding foreign players has quickly put those stories to bed. Funny that. Now I’m not claiming to be Jorge Mendes’ best mate or that he’s told me which stories are true and which aren’t, but I think we can all agree that at least half of those supposed offers were plucked from thin air to appease headline writers.

It’s an easy target, too. And much like some famous front pages in the UK tabloids, the correction to an erroneous headline is often hidden, in smaller piece or skimmed over far too quickly. The initial story that captures our imagination leaves a longer imprint than when it’s dismissed as a load of rubbish. James Rodriguez was linked with a huge move to China which was denied by the club in question, as well as Real Madrid. Cristiano Ronaldo was another supposedly subject to a mega bid but Florentino Perez, Madrid’s president, said there had been no offers for Cristiano. Oh really?

The most recent story involving a Chinese club surrounds Diego Costa following a fall out with Antonio Conte at Chelsea. It apparently stemmed from the Brazilian born Spaniard’s desire to join the revolution in China and Fabio Cannavaro’s comments yesterday add weight to that belief. “The same [interest] can be said for Costa because Chelsea also only let him leave in June.” Yet is it possible a club could use interest from China as a way to smear a player’s name in the wake of a stand off?

Chelsea said there was no chance Costa would be allowed to leave in January so it’s a moot point. Cannavaro did confirm some bids had been placed but very little was written about those, which is strange seeing as so many people in the media seem to have strong links with almost every Chinese Super League side. Karim Benzema, Edinson Cavani, Radamel Falcao and Raul Jimenez were all subject of bids. Falcao and Jimenez even agreed deals but the new rule changes forced plans to sign them to be shelved.

So now we’re done with Chinese Super League sides until the summer, where do we go to next? That’s right, old rumours and links so people believe it must be true as there was previous interest. It’s also commonplace for English newspapers to run stories involving Spanish sides as they rarely come out to say they’re untrue. In Spain any publicity is good publicity and rumours of English sides being interested, making a bid, or ‘considering’ a bid are welcome even if there’s little or no substance to them.

We’ve already had the ridiculously worded article, subsequently followed up by another article from a different writer at the same paper, saying Dele Alli was a target for Real Madrid. He scored back-to-back braces so was popular amongst social media and trending, so why not throw out a loose link to a major European side for clicks and views?

And then we got the second article after Dele scored another two against Chelsea, like clockwork. “Hey, that piece did really well despite not saying much of anything. Let’s expand it by adding one or two more paragraphs to get essentially the same non-story another bunch of clicks.”

To write about this sport we love is seen as one of the best jobs around, and it is, but there’s a responsibility which comes with the territory that so many fail to understand. Fans might click on your articles claiming a superstar is about to join their club, and they may click on all the follow up pieces, but the lasting memory is that you aren’t reliable and you become less respected.

Take ‘The Sun’ for example, side-stepping their horrendous coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy, and focus on their reputation amongst football fans. The term exclusive has been abused by them to the point that no one takes the paper seriously. Harry Kane wants to leave they said, but he then goes and signs a new deal. Lionel Messi a £100m target for Manchester City they said, but does anyone think Barcelona would sell Messi, and only for a snip under what Paul Pogba cost? Come on, lads.

Speaking of Messi, today saw a magazine interview he did exposed as being completely fabricated. ‘Coach’ magazine posted an exclusive question and answer article a few days ago, supposedly conducted by Diego Jokas, and it’s made plenty of media outlets both in Spain and in the UK due to how rare interviews with Messi are. Jokas took to Twitter to deny ever working for ‘Coach’ and said this interview didn’t take place. Messi’s entourage have also dismissed the article and claim it’s being dealt with by their legal team. Wonderful.

There have been stories linking Nicolas Gaitan with a move to Tottenham Hotspur but that was never on the cards due to Atletico Madrid’s transfer ban. More recently it’s been Antoine Griezmann, who is close friends with Pogba don’t you know? The idea the player is considering his future right now is bizarre. He inked a new deal in the summer on the condition that Diego Simeone would stay and, privately, both have assured those around them that they’ll be at the club for Atletico’s first season in the new stadium [2017/18].

“He has a buyout clause!” I hear you cry. Yes, it’s true, a rich club could pay his buyout clause but that in itself carries a lot of complications. Atletico would be within their rights to insist on tax being paid on top of that, which could add up to €50m on his €100m clause. That’s asking a lot for even the Chinese Super League teams to come up with!

The transfer bans for Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid, coupled with Barcelona being cash-strapped, doesn’t leave much room for transfer business on a large scale. In Spain there’s a similar issue when searching for stories good enough to draw people in to buy their newspapers. Recently, due to the lack of genuine news, they’ve resorted to re-using stories from British media outlets. A vicious cycle.

I understand it’s difficult when you consider the amount of traffic transfer news brings in and there’s very little about. If you don’t run transfer news and rumours then smaller, less established places can steal a large part of your readers with empty gossip pieces.

Twitter is a constant feed of news, rumours and complete lies. Is there enough time to sieve through it all before interest drops or do you run with the flow knowing news is recycled so quickly you can get away with it? I hope it’s the former as opposed the latter.

We all owe it to all of the people who decide to read our work that once they click that story they don’t feel duped, even if the ‘numbers’ are good.