To believe or not to believe that is the question?
Since the birth of the Premier League football fans have become accustomed to and thrived in filling their summer with the rumors of who their clubs may possibly sign. It is normally excting dreaming of that foreign signing to lead your title challenge, but there is a danger of overkill.
Has this once exciting past time that fuels the fodder for discussion in pubs up and down the land spiraled out of control?
With new sport websites, increased newspaper coverage and solely sports news television channels, how do football fans know what to believe anymore?
Has is it become saturated?
From merry go round to death defying roller-coaster
The transfer merry go round has now escalated into a death defying roller-coaster set in a pitch black tunnel flinging you backwards while you wonder what turn it will take next.
The crux of the problem is that papers and new media formats need to make money and during the summer months transfer gossip is major news and can carry for weeks.
However, their plan of attack is in danger of being a one dimensional srategy. It revolves around printing more and more speculation until the fans are left uninformed and bored of transfer speculation.
There are only so many times as a fan you can read that Frank Lampard is definitely staying, and then a day later reading he is in Italy drinking Prosecco and eating pasta with the ‘special one.’
What do you believe? The value of an exclusive has been severely watered down.
Who do you trust?
Obviously the players and agents use the rumor mills to engineer moves and better contracts for their clients, but the media must be the link to the fans to communicate the truth behind transfer speculation.
Or, at the very least give an insider’s opinion, reading between the lines.
The words pot, kettle and black may spring to mind when i say the problem area is the internet. New and independent web-sites are focused on getting as much advertising revenue as possible and in order to achieve this they need as many hits as possible. The more speculative the rumor the more hits the website gets.
But sports fans are becoming bored with speculation. They demand insight.
The increased speculation has started to isolate the clubs from the media. Take Arsenal and Manchester United. Both clubs try their utmost to keep all business behind closed doors until the last minute because the increased speculation leads to inflation in the market as soon as the top clubs are rumored to be involved in the pursuit of a player.
The romance of transfer speculation is still a summer past-time which i enjoy as much as any other football fan, but the media must offer valued insight, reading between the lines.
If we do not do this, the transfer tittle tattle that ignites our football free summers is in danger of becoming farcical. The worry is the fans may start to treat it as rubbish.
We have an obligation to the readers to make sense of the merry-go-round, not start building a roller-coaster of hear say. Until next time...