The transfer rumour that never was

By Sean Whetstone

Back in July West Ham ITK @EXWhuEmployee contacted us with an idea for a social experiment.

He wanted to prove that many newspapers would print any transfer rumour without checking it out first.

He asked us to choose a random player that might sound credible. At the time we knew West Ham were looking for a backup striker but didn’t have a lot of money left in the budget andweI thought it would be fun to make him South American as Pellegrini could be attracted to such.

Fabian Balbuena had joined from Corinthians on a low transfer fee so we googled his teammates on the look out for a striker. We found Angel Romero at random, a fellow Paraguayan player and well known to Balbuena.

However our research wasn’t that great as his goal to games ratio at the time was awful and although he was a striker for the national team, he was more of a winger for the Brazilian team.

On 23rd July at 11.10am EX tweeted out the first rumour on social media about Angel Romero which we endorsed and the experiment began.

The Daily Star was first to take the bait followed by the Daily Express but it wasn’t long until the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Talksport and Fox Sports followed suit to name just a few.

A large number of other football blogs and websites also carried the rumour as did West Ham social media accounts and forums. Some even suggested he was flying in for a medical.

Then the rumour went international with websites, radio stations and blogs in Germany, Paraquay, Spain, Italy and Turkey picking up the UK press coverage which culminated in an interview with Romero asking him about a possible move to the Premier League after interest from West Ham.

He told reporters that it is the dream of any Paraguayan player to play in the Premier League which is the best league in the world and explained that Balbuena’s wife and his were best friends.

What we should explain at this point is my earlier mistake of picking a winger with a rubbish goal ratio luckily flipped on its head when Corinthians helpfully made him a striker a few days after we made up the rumour and he started scoring goals for fun.

He scored five goals in two games including a hat-trick and managed seven goals and five assists in just fifteen games.

Apologies for those we misled, it was only a bit of fun and to prove a point about transfer rumours but we reckon it has helped Angel Romero’s worldwide profile and, who knows, maybe one day he will get his move to England if he keeps on scoring goals like he has recently.

I discuss the rumour that never was on in a bit more detail this week’s West Ham Way Podcast.