Suggestions that the Chairman’s son Jack Sullivan is now West Ham’s technical director and leading transfer negotiations couldn’t be further from the truth.

The wacky claim was made by journalist Tom Kershaw writing for the Independent who said: “Joint-chairman David Sullivan’s son, Jack, has been acting as technical director and leading transfer negotiations for the club with West Ham’s current director of football, Mario Husillos, expected to depart with Pellegrini.”

No sooner had Kershaw written this bizarre paragraph about Jack Sullivan in the Independent’s online edition it was quickly taken down online most likely embarrassed by his ridiculous claims.

But in the modern world of the Internet, there is no such thing as deleting ill-thought articles and the words have since gone viral among West Ham circles on social media unaware that the paragraph was deleted shortly after it was published.

Jack Sullivan is the managing director of the West Ham women’s team and the suggestion that he is moonlighting by leading the men’s transfer negotiations is completely wide of the mark and quite frankly ludicrous.  The conspiracy theorists will, of course, think it is a cover-up but we are told the 19-year-old is happily running the Women’s team and has no time for anything else.

The only reason we are covering this story at all is a number of Claret and Hugh readers contacted us to ask whether it was true or not. Trust us when he say it is fake news.