Shit From Shinola: Five Ways to Spot False Transfer Rumors

Brace yourselves soccer fans. The January transfer window—that month-long orgy of buying and selling between European clubs—is open, which means you’re about to read a lot of transfer rumors.

Some of those rumors will be Shinola: stories based in solid information that end in players moving clubs, or stories that are at least based on real information even if the move ultimately falls through.

But some of those stories will be the thing you don’t want to step in: either a distorted version of reality designed to grab your attention, or an outright fiendish lie concocted by evil people who just want you to read their tabloid newspaper or click on their website.

So how are you supposed to tell shit from Shinola? It’s not easy. But ask yourself the questions below, and you’ll be be better prepared to spot the shoe-sparkling truth from the outright stinkers.

1. Is there a question mark in the headline?
Follow Betteridge’s law of headlines — “Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no.’”— and you’ll find it’s suddenly very easy to filter out huge chunks of transfer rumor bullshit. Cristiano Ronaldo on Verge of Joining Liverpool? The answer is no. And the “on verge of” is just there to give an illusion of imminent activity. If CR7 was about to rock up at Anfield, the headline would read, “Cristiano Ronaldo on Verge of Joining Liverpool.” If you see a question mark, don’t even click.

2. Did you read it on Twitter?
Then it all depends who tweeted it. If it was a trusted journalist with a reputation to maintain, who’s hearing things from inside a club—Tony Barrett of The Times breaking the Gerrard story on Twitter is a good example—then it’s probably worth your attention.

Most Popular

Steven Gerrard is set to announce that he will leave Liverpool at the end of this season. MLS is his most likely destination.
— Tony Barrett (@TonyBarretTimes) January 1, 2015

But If it’s from someone called @FootballAgent_5 … keep scrolling.

3. Is the headline vague about who the player is?
If so, that’s because it’s not a player worth getting excited about. You might read a headline that says, Arsenal close to deal for winger, and that headline might be accurate. But don’t expect it to mean Gareth Bale is about to sign for the Gunners. If he was, they’d use Bale’s name. And read that headline again. is Arsenal definitely the buying club? More likely is that an Arsenal cast-off winger is being sold for small change to a League Two team.

4. Does the headline match the quote?
Definitely check this, because usually, the answer is “no.” The classic scenario is that Player A (or his agent) is asked if he’d ever play for Team X. The player or agent is polite and doesn’t like telling people no, and so says “yeah, one day, why not.” This is then twisted into a headline that suggests “Player A Wants to Play for Club X.” This MLS Soccer headline from today is a great example:

But it’s based on a quote from Ronaldo’s agent, Jorge Mendes, who was essentially saying anything could happen after Ronaldo’s Real contract expires in 2018: “After that, perhaps he will go to the United States. Only God knows what will happen,” Mendes says.

5. Does the story use the word “reported?”
Certain soccer websites attract a lot of visitors by simply repeating transfer rumors they’ve seen elsewhere. But they won’t note the original source of the story, they’ll just use the catch all phrase “it’s being reported that … ” Best thing to do is remember this really means “we read somewhere on the internet.” If you’re really interested in this story, best thing to do is ignore the third-hand thing you’re reading and go and find the original source.

The above set of questions isn’t foolproof. But hopefully it’s helpful in sorting the shit from the Shinola. And if you still can’t tell the difference, then maybe Navin R. Johnson’s father can point it out to you: