Back Page Fake Narratives

It has always been my contention that the whole business of 'fake news' originated in the sports pages of British tabloids.  Their back pages are just full of completely made up transfer stories, as they try desperately to drive along the narratives that they have devised.  That most of the stories are fake is witnessed by the lack of direct quotes from any of the principals, relying instead upon those ubiquitous 'unnamed sources' who are 'close to the player' or 'close to the club'.  (The only time that transfer stories had any degree of accuracy was during the period that the tabloids were routinely - and illegally - tapping the voice mails of football players, agents and managers).  These narratives often drag on for years, as the sports writing establishment decides that player 'X' is wasted at club 'Y', so should move to club 'Z': every close season they'll run story after story about how 'Z' is preparing a bid for 'X', or how 'X' is dissatisfied with the lack of trophies at 'Y' and the club's 'lack of ambition.  Often it is given further fuel by agents who see a potential big pay day in a big money move by 'X'.  Even when 'X' signs a new contract with 'Y', they won't let up.  Sometimes it works, after years of the press telling a player that they are too good for their current club, reminding them that time is running out for them if they want to win trophies, they finally decide that maybe they should move to that other club that wins all those trophies because it has the money to keep on buying up all the best players, not only strengthening themselves, but weakening opponents by depriving them of talent.

Those of us with the misfortune to be Tottenham supporters, of course, are all too familiar with this sort of media narrative - ever since the emergence of Harry Kane as a world class player, (despite many of these same pundits having dubbed him a 'one season wonder'), we've had the press trying to engineer his transfer first to Real Madrid and currently to Manchester City.  Right now these 'journalists' must be feeling very frustrated.  Despite, apparently, having pushed the narrative to the brink of  a conclusion, they still can't seem to get it over the line.  As the transfer window enters its final fortnight and Kane is still a Spurs player, (he is, after all, midway through a six year contract and City seem unwilling to actually offer anything like Spurs' asking price), they must be furiously banging their fists on their desks, red faced, shouting: "Don't these people know, we decide who plays where and who wins the league!  Just like we decide who wins elections in this country!  It's about time that everyone just accepted that we're in charge!'  Because the levels of hubris which seems to surround sports writers and pundits often seems to reach such delusional levels.  Not only do they constantly spin all this transfer bollocks year in, year out, but they seem to actually start believing it, too, regardless of the fact that they made it up in the first place.  A lot of them work for media outlets with a vested interest in seeing the same clubs winning leagues and cups year in, year out - they have rights to show their matches and the bigger the team playing, the more pay per views they can get.  So, once Manchester City, for instance, got its oil rich sugar daddies and could start, in effect, buying trophies by buying in the top talent, they started enlarging their fanbase, making their continued success important to the media.  Similarly, those same media owners have a vested interest in the 'right' political parties winning elections so as to ensure a minimum of regulation on their activities and a minimum of taxation on their profits.  Hence the other type of 'fake news' which occupies their front pages.