There was a bit of a quirk for 2024 standards earlier this month when Tottenham signed winger Wilson Odobert from Burnley. By Mail Sport’s rough calculations, the transfer was the only high-profile move this summer that came completely out of the blue.
In this social-media age, transfers are trailed for weeks, months and, in the case of Kylian Mbappe to Real Madrid, even years in advance. Hourly, often pointless updates are offered on potential deals – and Big Six clubs are loosely linked with tens of players each summer.
This is perhaps a bizarre line to write in a newspaper but, for the kids of today, logging on to X or Instagram as the first thing they do upon waking up is the modern-day equivalent of reading your favourite sports pages over a cup of coffee and breakfast in the morning.
Outlets like this one have been forced to adapt. In Mail Sport’s case, we had our fantastic live blog running around the clock on Friday packed with exclusive scoops and insight from the best team in sports journalism.
Even Sky Sports News have been left playing catch-up somewhat. Just over a decade ago, this reporter remembers pacing home from school to watch Jim White and his yellow-tied crew debate potential transfers until the clock ticked towards 11pm.
When Tottenham signed Burnley's Wilson Odobert it was a transfer that came out of the blue
Man United's eventual signing of Manuel Ugarte on Deadline Day had been well-documented
Riccardo Calafiori's move to Arsenal from Bologna saw fans scour for information for weeks
With some deals, supporters will not settle until a player is pictured holding their club’s shirt at the stadium. But nowadays, many get excited over the most minor of updates. ‘Player X is on a long list of targets for Club Y’ will send a fanbase into delirium and fuel hours of debate.
Fans have their trusted set of journalists, usually ranked on social media with a ‘tier system’ of reliability, following a coloured traffic-light or ‘moon’ system – most of Mail Sport’s roster are in the green or full-moon category – but they will also gobble up any old rumour.
Normally, the process is this: if their club is linked with a player they want, fans will feast on the story and get excited about it, praising the journalist no matter whether it is true or false. If it is a negative report, for example saying a transfer is unlikely, it must be wrong. It is utterly bizarre.
There are also ‘superstar journalists’. Fabrizio Romano is a brand himself with 22million followers on X. To put that number into perspective, our prime minister Keir Starmer has 1.8m and this week’s hot topic, Oasis’ Gallagher brothers – Liam and Noel – have 4.2m combined.
Romano, who is just 31 years old and from Milan, has the ‘here we go!’ catchphrase which others have tried to replicate, such as ‘there we land!’ and other imitations. If you look at the profile of a football agent on social media, in nearly every case they are followed by Romano.
He has his own cult following who hang on his every word and he is able to charge astronomical fees for short podcast appearances or adverts. He has a clothing range and some clubs have used him as part of their wacky transfer announcements, which is an ever-growing trend.
Journalists have their faces superimposed on to pictures that fans send them on X. Some nasty, some rather funny. No matter how good a team is, fans seem to never be happy in August unless their club is signing a player, with a rumour celebrated more than a goal on a Saturday.
Kids might be called boffins by mates for going train-spotting at the weekend, so instead they go plane-spotting. The most-tracked flight on aviation website FlightRadar24 last week was the private jet from Barcelona to Manchester carrying City’s Treble-winning captain Ilkay Gundogan.
Last week, Leeds fans got excited over a jet travelling to west Yorkshire from Bournemouth. Who were they signing from the Cherries? No one, it turned out. It was just an every-day punter who could afford the luxury of flying rather than relying on our broken trainline.
Similarly, Liverpool fans were sent into a frenzy on Thursday when a jet – which had travelled from Turin to take Federico Chiesa to Merseyside – was en route to Porto. They must have been signing their midfielder Alan Varela, according to the ‘ITK’ (in the know) accounts on X.
Within minutes, Argentinian reporters had jumped on the story. Sources close to Liverpool soon denied any interest and that was that. The X aggregator accounts – which collect bits of news to repost, often out of context – made a quick buck, though.
These accounts are paid by impressions on social media – in short, X pays a share of its advertising revenue to verified accounts based on views, replies and other interactions. Many reporters fear that the aggregators will twist their reports so are forced to carefully word articles.
Readers might turn their nose up, but thousands of people around the world make a livelihood from transfer rumours, often regurgitated from trusted news websites. Imagine the conversation in a pub when asked what they do for work.
Part of this mad world is led by clubs themselves. Veteran super-agent John Smith appeared on Mail Sport’s podcast It’s All Kicking Off this week – a very insightful chat – and discussed how teams and players now have a huge entourage of transfer gurus and representatives.
Agents themselves often fuel the rumour mill. They plant stories on journalists to drive up interest in their clients. For example, if Club A wants to sign a player but are digging their heels in over finances, an agent might leak a false line that Club B wants them to accelerate a deal.
This happened this week with a high-profile player where an agent planted a story of a club’s interest to try to manufacture better terms at their current club. Agents pocket huge sums from deals, notably the huge figure Neymar’s representatives got for his move to Paris.
The most-tracked flight on aviation website FlightRadar24 last week was the private jet from Barcelona to Manchester carrying City’s Treble-winning captain Ilkay Gundogan
There are also ‘superstar journalists’. Fabrizio Romano is a brand with 22 million followers
Conor Gallagher's move from Chelsea to Atletico Madrid was scrutinised by fans far and wide
Pedro Neto's move from Wolves to join Chelsea was another that largely went under the radar
When super-agent Mino Raiola died in 2022, it made back pages and headline TV news. His successor Rafaela Pimenta now manages clients from Erling Haaland to Arne Slot, so it is clear these people are richly ingrained in the blood of football.
There are now hour-by-hour updates on transfer sagas: club scouting player, club interested in signing player, exploring a bid, making a bid, and another, talking to the agent over terms, agreed terms, flying to new home, having a medical, passed medical, done deal.
In the two hours it has taken to write this article, Romano has posted 29 times on X – this is not a dig, he is often bang on the money and first to big exclusive stories. The modern transfer window is tiresome at times, but no one can deny that it can also be rather fun.
Anyway, seeing as the window slammed shut on Friday night – it is always slammed, never gently closed – it is time for our transfer team at Mail Sport to put their feet up and have a day or two off. Only kidding, folks, January is just around the corner… who are my club signing?