QPR concluded a very satisfactory summer transfer window with the signing of Anton Ferdinand on Wednesday evening but narrowly missed out on Chelsea striker Fernando Torres.

Getting silly now

How do I know this? Well, I don’t. What I do know though is that it’s very easy for me to sit here and write “LoftforWords sources suggested,” it might be the case. Words like "suggest" and "might" are very important on transfer deadline day.

Let me tell you a bit about the LoftforWords sources who "suggested" this "might" be in the offing. It was actually my other half Lindsey, who once got stuck on a night bus on the Kings Road near Chelsea’s ground because of a sunken manhole cover and was therefore well placed to comment when I asked her through the bathroom door this morning whether or not she could categorically deny QPR had placed a bid for Fernando Torres. She couldn’t (she doesn’t know who he is) and therefore it might be true. She got quite cross about it all actually.

Another thing I know is most of you reading this, as genuine football fans whose connections to the game stretch as far as paying your money once a week and yelling abuse at the referee, cannot say categorically that it’s not true. And therefore it might be.

Welcome to the rules of reporting on transfer deadline day.

Now if I worked for the Evening Standard newspaper, and was playing by the standard rules of reporting on any other day, I probably would have popped into the office this morning and stuck in a call to the Transport for London press office just to clarify something I overheard on the Northern Line from a woman called Jean. Jean was telling her friend Linda that she’d heard from another friend whose husband drives Northern Line trains that they were shutting the High Barnet branch of the line for the whole of October. Jean uses the line everyday apparently and doesn’t know what on earth she’s going to do to get to work.

What we have there is a tip to investigate, nothing more. Having rung the TFL press people I’m pretty confident they would have told me that Jean was actually mistaken – the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line will be closed in October, but only for two weekends to allow a new signal system to be fitted. So if we were having a slow news day and we hadn’t already reported that then maybe I’d stumbled across one of those p15 leads under a “More Misery for Tube Passengers” headline and a “this is the same poxy system they’ve made a hash of on the Jubilee Line you know” scaremongering introductory three paragraphs. Couple of talking heads at East Finchley station, embattled Mayor of London spokesperson saying disruption will be kept to a minimum, picture of Northern Line train with driver looking gormless at a red signal and the job’s a good un.

However under the rules of reporting transfer deadline day what I would have been able to do is walk off the tube and into the office, sit down at my desk and punch out a page one splash with a turn to three under a banner headline of possibly only one word – ‘CHAOS’ or something like that. Suddenly Jean’s mate whose husband is a tube driver becomes a “source within TFL” and Jean herself becomes a city worker fearful she may lose her job with no way of getting to work. I’d have been done for the day by lunchtime and my story would have been completely inaccurate but so what? People like to read stories about the tube and therefore it's ok.

Not sure what I’m going on about? Well allow me to present exhibit A for the prosecution. There follows at the end of this article a list of 38 "news" stories that Sky Sports reported on its website between 9am on Tuesday and the close of the transfer window last night. You’ll quickly spot a running theme I’m sure – i.e. none of them actually happened.

Now I’d like to point out at this point, with lawyers twitching, that it was Viz Magazine that said you could pretend to be a Sky Sports reporter by “standing in a field and making things up” and not LoftforWords. I am not for one moment suggesting that that reporters are simply making this stuff up. Had I written my tube story up in the second way it wouldn't have been made up would it? Just badly sourced and poorly checked.

Nor am I advocating a culture where we all sit quietly on deadline day waiting for the clubs' official websites to put out the official confirmation of deals before they are allowed to be mentioned on sports news channels. After all last night Sky Sports News interviewed Shaun Wright Phillips at 10.30pm talking about how delighted he was to get the deal done at QPR and we had to wait another 30 minutes for the QPR site to follow suit claiming it was an "exclusive" and saying that when SWP had appeared on Sky talking about how he'd just signed the deal he actually hadn't.

I am merely pointing out that were my newspaper to put out editions across two days with 38 stories in it that never happened then I would expect the editor to be asking serious questions about the sources being used and the quality checks each story has to go through. I'm up for a well sourced rumour as much as the next fan, and I'm sure lots of the deals on the list below may have been discussed somewhere at some point. But I'm also sure that a great deal of them were just lines from players' agents trying to drum up interest in their players and were complete works of fiction - I'm looking particularly at the Sulley Muntari and Roman Pvlyuchenko deals mentioned below.

No doubt there's a mutual back scratching thing going on there where news agencies report agent tips like those in exchange for genuinely decent info at other times. But is it ever right to report something you know is probably not true in exchange for something that might be in the future? Would you expect your local newspaper to run a story given to them by the borough council no questions asked in exchange for some genuine news further down the line? And even if Stoke really did ring up and ask Arsenal about Nicklas Bendtner at what point do you report that? Given that it didn't even come close to happening should it be reported at all?

My favourite example of the lack of quality control on stories from the past two days was the suggestion that Stoke City were trying to sign Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku on loan for the rest of the season. Now I'm not calling for every story to be double sourced and treble checked before it gets an airing but you’ll almost certainly remember that Lukaku signed for Chelsea only last week, and you may have some recollection that there is a rule forbidding such a double move in a single transfer window. It certainly wouldn’t take much checking to clarify that rule – one call to the Premier League press office perhaps or even a thorough Google search would probably turn up what you need to know. But Sky, followed by the BBC and everybody else, reported the Lukaku story straight away. An hour later, when this rule was mentioned, another story was put out saying the move had “fallen through” or “been denied” rather than the journalistic tradition when you put something out that is clearly false – an apology.

I also enjoyed the Sky reporter on the ground at Stoke, surrounded by what can only be described as the dregs of the modern world (not a symmetrical face among them) who said categorically at lunchtime on Wednesday that the club's move for Peter Crouch was off. In the very next report that bloke who looks very much like he died sometime ago and is being propped up by a director while the sound man wiggles his mouth around was up at Sunderland and said quite categorically that Peter Crouch would not be coming to Sunderland because he was going to Stoke instead. One of them was right as it turned out, but it didn't say much for the quality of the first guy's sources and there was a definite feeling of 'throw enough shit at the wall' about the second.

And whenever they did get a manager on screen to give an update and he said something like "we won't be doing any more business today" the reporter would scoff and say "ahh but we all remember what happened with Spurs last deadline day, you never know." What "happened" at Spurs last transfer deadline day was that five minutes before the deadline Sky Sports claimed they'd made an offer for Charlie Adam. The move never happened. Quite why this incident can be used for the rest of time to immediately strike something a manager says that you don't want to hear off as a lie is unclear to me.

But, then, this is only football and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. It’s only a sport, it’s not worth getting het up about. Seeing all those Sky Sports boys with their gratuitous video screens in the studio and gang of moronic chavs loitering round behind the roving reporter in the car park at Tottenham’s training ground is all a bit of fun really, I should take it for what it is. As Jim White said over the Big Ben chimes at 11pm last night: "Some people don't like transfer deadline day, but then unlike us some people don't like excitement in their lives."

Except this summer things have taken a rather sinister turn. You see in amongst the garbage pouring forward on the “live transfer ticker” there are now live odds. You can bet on where Yossi Benayoun is going to go this summer – Liverpool 5/2, Arsenal 7/2, Spurs 4/1 at close of business on Tuesday – with Sky’s own betting service. So now we have a news service that has put out 38 stories over the past 48 hours that have turned out to be wrong and also has an associated profitable betting service that it encourages you to use to gamble on which of them might be true.

Is it just me that feels uncomfortable with this? Create a market with a news story, link a few clubs to a player and get people to bet on it, if he goes nowhere then everybody's a loser. If this was CNBC instead of Sky Sports News, and these were share prices rather than odds responding to one incorrect story after another about purchases and sales, then somebody would very quickly be placed in jail.

This is a concerning progression from sites like Tribal Football and Caught Offside which publish stories with outlandish headlines, such as the one I’ve used here, to draw you into a three line story suggesting that Lionel Messi may be about to arrive at Loftus Road. These stories attract a lot of hits, because people see them on NewsNow and want to see this amazing (completely untrue) piece of news. They then sell advertising space on their site saying “look how many hits we have”. Tuesday's best effort from Caught Offside was QPR’s season long loan offer to Man Utd’s Michael Owen. Complete nonsense, but I bet some of you clicked on it when you saw it. Hell, somebody even linked the bloody thing on our message board - and that’s all they care about.

It may only be football, it may not be that important in the grand scheme of things, but putting out such a high volume of incorrect stories to people who do care a great deal about their clubs and the sport and then either shrugging and saying “things change all the time in football” or worse still not even mentioning the ones that turn out to be false ever again is immoral. Especially so now there are chances for gullible people to bet on it.

Worse still it has spawned a whole load of amateur 'in the know' idiots, each one more desperate than the last to make you believe they have a source somewhere with some fantastic information. They too like to use phrases like "I understand" and "sources suggest" to cover up the fact they know fuck all. We've had our fair share of "Ched Evans is on the bus" and "Danny Graham has just bought a house in Sunbury" nonsense down the years but we are not alone. Manchester Airport reports 357 separate sightings of Wesley Sneijder this summer Tweeted by people who, presumably, get a kick out of lying to people.

The only thing more mystifying than the people who want to Tweet sightings of footballers at service stations that didn't actually happen, is the people who lap it up and want to read it. If you've sat enchanted by Sky Sports News over the past 48 hours, then you'll probably recognise some of the following.

Those that didn't make it...

Peter Crouch definitely staying with Spurs. (He went to Stoke)

Peter Crouch signing for Sunderland for £10m. (He went to Stoke)

Tottenham to complete signing of Gary Cahill from Bolton with Sebastien Bassong going the other way. (Both stayed put).

Sebastien Bassong to join QPR. (Stayed put).

Charlton, Notts County and Millwall battling to sign Mark Marshall from Barnet. (Stayed put)

Sulley Muntari to leave Inter Milan and join Newcastle. (Stayed put).

Sulley Muntari to leave Inter Milan and join Fulham. (Stayed put).

Sulley Muntari to leave Inter Milan and join Spurs. (Stayed put).

Charlton striker Paul Benson set for either Bournemouth or Bradford. (Joined neither).

Tottenham and Liverpool in for Yossi Benayoun from Chelsea. (Joined Arsenal)

Stoke to sign Nicklas Bendtner from Arsenal. (Joined Sunderland)

Blackpool to loan Nile Ranger from Newcastle. (Never happened)

Fulham, West Ham and QPR all fighting to sign Jerome Thomas from West Brom. (Went nowhere)

Peterborough are leading the chase for Norwich striker Cody McDonald. (Wrong). Closely followed by Coventry are leading the chase to sign Cody McDonald which was true.

Liverpool's David Ngog rejects a move to Leicester and might sign for Blackburn instead. (Went to Bolton)

Sunderland to 'push through' a deal for Wolfsburg's Patrick Helmes before the window closes. (Presumably they didn't push hard enough)

Aston Villa make deadline day swoop for Middlesbrough's Rhys Williams. (Never happened)

Newcastle, right up to 10.30pm on Wednesday, about to sign Bryan Ruiz. (Went to Fulham for £12m)

Fulham to sign Ghana ace Derek Boateng from Dnipro Sky Sports understands. (Or misunderstands)

Daniel Sturridge to Liverpool. (No)

Southampton to push for Jay Rodriguez from Burnley. (Again, push harder)

Craig Bellamy to Stoke. (Went to Liverpool)

Cameron Jerome from Birmingham to Leicester. (Maybe they confused him with Bellamy)

Jermaine Jenas from Spurs to QPR. (Went to Villa)

Stephen Dobbie to swap Swansea for Blackpool. (Stayed put)

Jan Beausejour to join Wigan from Birmingham. (Never happened)

Aston Villa to sign Joe Cole from Liverpool. (Went to Lille)

Craig Bellamy to join QPR from Man City. (Went to Liverpool).

Roman Pavlyuchenko to leave Spurs for Porto. (Stayed put)

Gary Hooper from Celtic to Wolves. (Never happened)

Andre-Pierre Gignac to Fulham. Or Blackburn. Or Everton. (Or nowhere)

Birmingham close to a deal for Newcastle's Nile Ranger. (A second attempt after the earlier Blackpool story, still wrong)

Brighton and Coventry both close to deals for Leeds' Billy Paynter. (You'd think the way Leeds get rid of players this would be like shooting fish in a barrel, alas...)

Alvaro Pereira from Porto to Chelsea. (No)

Liam Ridgwell and Nicky Shorey to Celtic. (Wrong)

Ok, Liam Ridgwell to Newcastle then. (Still wrong)

Kaka from Real Madrid to Spurs. (Not even worth dignifying with a response)

Adam Johnson from Man City to Stoke. (Likewise).

Tweet @loftforwords

Photo: Action Images

A40Bosh added 19:33 - Sep 1 Clive, fully understand your frustration at all this stupidity and the list indeed does highlight the nonsense of it all. However, your inclusion of the Cahill/Bassong saga did at least have a large element of truth in it because out of the horse's mouth Harry did say live on tv that they tried their hardest to get Cahill and that he felt sorry for NW as Bassong was coming to us once Cahill was signed. How many of the others had any truth in them and that things did "change" is obviously difficult but at the end of the day they are probably only rare shoots of wheaf amongst a great deal of chaff. Fully agree that there is a conflict of interet if Sky are generating bets that have little or no chance of coming in for the punter because they made the story up themselves. That should be looked in to.

0

Grant165 added 19:47 - Sep 1 "QPR concluded a very satisfactory summer transfer window" not words I would expect to read 2 weeks ago
0

Blauweissengel added 19:49 - Sep 1 Another for the list. Around midday on wednesday, SSN presenters said that there'd be some really exciting news for Man United fans to be announced soon. No mention of anything involving Man United was made all day, and the Man United fans who'd heard that announcement must have been left hanging with no let down or retraction of any kind.
0

NorwayRanger16 added 20:07 - Sep 1 "Create a market with a news story, link a few clubs to a player and get people to bet on it". Very disturbing and something that has annoyed me too, it need to get looked into. Deadline day, take it with a wheelbarrow of salt and enjoy it, or just turn it off. In the words of Jim White: "Some people don't like transfer deadline day, but then unlike us some people don't like excitement in their lives."

0

GetMeRangers added 20:24 - Sep 1 The sad thing is that there were many more than just that list. In addition to those mentioned above, we were also linked to Liam Ridgewell, Gary Hooper, Scott Danns and it pretty well seemed that we would be to any player that became available The most enjoyable part of the evening was listening to Savage being ticked off by David Pleat for most of the nonense he was spouting. Please why has Savage been offered up as a replacement for Clarridge... granted, though, that they both know jack...

0

VancouverHoop added 20:36 - Sep 1 Excellent piece. Deserves much greater exposure.
0

Neil_SI added 21:02 - Sep 1 It's a really good piece and highlights a lot of problems with the way news and information is presented across the country. I stayed away from the Deadline Day news because I just don't like the inaccuracy of it all. I don't think you should be allowed to place bets on these kind of things as well, as it's just so open to abuse. I still find it wholly unusual at why so many teams go berserk on the last day when they've had 12 weeks to sort themselves out. Very seldom do you see the clubs run properly having to rush around like maniacs on the last day.

0

N12Hoop added 21:08 - Sep 1 Great article but we live in the world of Sky and the internet and it's all about the showbiz now. The Kaka headline was probably written weeks ago and was timed to hit the screens when there was a bit of a lull and to make sure all Spurs fans stayed tuned until 11 (or 11.05 given past history). News is no longer something factual reported a day in arrears with a few facts gathered. It is whatever captures the viewers attention and Sky is the Sun of TV: show the viewers a pair of tits (or Kaka to Spurs) and they'lll be transfixed. Still it was entertaining seeing what sort of lowlife kids there are in different parts of the country.

0

100percent added 21:19 - Sep 1 This is all very well Clive, but do you really expect us to believe you have a better half called Lyndsey......??? Where's the proof and where why wasn't this information on SSN?
0

westolian added 22:06 - Sep 1 She probably ended up as someone else's girlfriend Or not
0

Juzzie added 23:04 - Sep 1 I think I'll start up my own forum and pepper it with SSN style 'journalism'. Should work, shouldn't it?
0

smegma added 00:23 - Sep 2 SKY are now running a bet on whether Clive has a better half and her name. Bob is at evens I'm hearing. Sharon is 4/1 we are led to believe. Lindsey at 8/11 is the latest report coming in.
0

RangerKIK added 02:05 - Sep 2 Clive, absoloutely hilarious. Great write up. As you said in AKUTR's if we really don't like it (season ticket prices etc) then don't go. Same with Sky, or any 24 hour news program, if we (the Great British Public) didn't watch it they wouldn't do it. But we (well not me I watched Sky for 5 mins and thought 'bollocks to this i'm going down the pub') love the speculation. All TV is now hype and hysteria. Anything to keep us hooked! When we are all turned away from the gates of heaven because none of has a soul left at least on the long journey 'downstairs' we can get out our Blackberry's and iphones and update our Facebook status, read the latest news propaganda er feeds, tweet Satan to let him know our eta and sell the rights of our trip to a Reality tv show. We could call it 'No Soultrain' with AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell' as the theme tune! Seriously Sky sports is just months away from using Pyrotechnics. 'Over to our reporter in Stoke for breaking news'. Kaboom, two confetti canons go off that would put the latest Muse stage show to shame. 'So what's the latest Tom?'. 'Nothing to report apart from Huth's Aston Martin is now on fire'! 'not a symmetrical face among them'. LOL.....Or a Dentist appointement!!!! Anyway did we sign Torres or not...........................................

0

isawqpratwcity added 06:48 - Sep 2 Clive, absolutely one of your best ever. This practice is probably not even as remotely close to being illegal as you have suggested before, but the immorality of a news service flagging rumours that people then bet on, using the same company's bookmaking facility, is almost Dickensian in it's cynical, mendacious greed. As you point out, the less likely the outcome, the more likely the bet will fail and profit the bookmaker, and they need have no discernible evidence whatsoever for their claims; and worse, the more improbable the rumour, the more likely some supporter would really want to believe it. Onya, Clive! A despicable abuse of the game we love, and another reason why I loathe Murdoch.

0

cjc added 08:08 - Sep 2 Maybe this would be best suited as a personal blog it is not really news, anyway very interesting points. Sadly a symptom of todays game in England and makes it very difficult to distinguish fact from BS. This type of practise doesn´t happen in Spain or Germany, not sure about Italy. Although there has always been a link between clubs, agents and the press everywhere from the beginning of time. I wouldn´t get het up about it, its just best to ignore it, or you will be living in a sad and cynical world.

0

Spiritof67 added 11:09 - Sep 2 When the sports presenter stood in front of the interactive screen, with the digital clock ticking, showing the Premiership clubs and each of the potential deals done, or those in the pipeine; he clicked on QPR, to show the players names on the screen, he touched the name of Young and up came a picture of Ashley Young! I could almost hear Ferguson choking on his chewing gum! Then I'm probably as guilty, as many others, watching a load of old tosh, rumours etc, on Sky on the last day of the transfer deadline.

0

Myke added 13:08 - Sep 2 much much more amusing than the fantasy histrionics of the SS presenters 0n deadline day was the factual histrionics of one Leon Clarke with Mr Di Canio which has left the former QPR 'gamble' searching for a new club 5 seconds after joining Swindon
0

QPR_Jim added 15:56 - Sep 2 Great article summing up the madness of the deadline day a feeling probably shared by supporters from all teams. It's really not on that they can suggest the deal is done when it's not. I don't care if Harry was trying his hardest, if that was the case, that should be the headline not one thats trying to suggest it's done and dusted. Add betting into the mix and I guess someones making money out of bad reporting, but personally I take it all with a pinch of salt until confirmed out of the official (even if it takes longer).

0

Myke added 18:23 - Sep 3 More good news Clive, I see Agyamang didn't make the 25 man cut. Feel a bit sorry for Ephraim although I always felt he was a bit lightweight. As for Shittu being left out I guess that proves how desperate Warnock was pre- Fernandez era.Can Championship teams sign these players when the loan window opens?
0

jimlav added 03:26 - Sep 4 Great article. Sadly this sort of journalism is not limited to transfer deadline day or indeed football, but is more symptomatic of the 24 hour news culture that we live in, constantly needing to supply a new story. I guess we all need to realise that the purpose of all this is to get people to watch or read as appropriate and thus generate revenue. Providing factually correct news is some way down the list of priorities.

0

Spaghetti_Hoops added 09:01 - Sep 4 An entertaining article Clive. That 24 hour news is mostly not news is no surprise to most of us. News is now just another branch of entertainment. Who cares about it's accuracy. Even BBC News seamlessly mixes fact with opinion and speculation, as if the distinction is unimportant. There are much more important issues than football players moving clubs being dealt with in this way eg the MMR scare which the BBC thought was such a good story they regurgitated it for months on the basis of zilch. In a world which does not have time to wait for the facts, rumours, opinion and speculation are king. As you said yourself it took a whole half hour longer for the Offish to state what we knew at 10.30pm. Life's too short.

0

R_Madrid added 22:06 - Sep 4 What do you mean, we didn't get Torres in the end, what a bummer... sounds so close to it though, nevermind plenty of other good signings this "deadline day" and we may get him in January! Your article is a satire of Sky (and not-only-Sports!) reporting, I worked for them for 8 years in the 90's and hated the blind egotisical ethos... "We are intelligent enough to know its wrong/we are wise enough to know it sells/we are canny enough to turn a blind eye thing (until we get laid in the shit by someone like the royal family or LFWs!?) It is both encouraged and rife from top down thoughtout the company.. Like some others have said here, this is a bit deeper than football matters only and not limited to Sky. Top Notch cutting edge article Clive.

0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Lincoln City Polls