The truth has, in many ways, been upended by the birth of the Internet, it’s surging ubiquity around the globe and it’s now equally ever present progeny, social media. Content is king in an age where media producers have more space to fill than ever before, and the ease with which it can be published has widened the net of potential content sources to an unprecedented volume. The use of the word ‘content’ is deliberate; as the opening words of this piece of content state, proliferation has had the unintended consequence of shrouding verifiable information and the truth with opinion, unsourced information posing as fact, as well as outright disinformation and malicious snare traps. As this relates to the business of football transfers, it has taken what already was a somewhat speculative and spurious subject matter and exploded it into a kaleidoscope of click bait, scurrilous rumours and In The Know (ITK) accounts galore who are anything but.
However, in recent years there has emerged one reporter who has consistently shown himself to actually be in the know, to an extent which outstrips many if not all of the so-called traditional and reliable sources of football news. For those of you not ‘in the know’ as to who we are talking about, it is of course Fabrizio Romano. The man to whom Twitter football fanatics set their transfer watch by, and who very likely will be amongst the most ‘notified’ Twitter accounts amongst followers of the beautiful game. Fans have come to hang on every word tweeted by Fabrizio in relation to all the biggest, most explosive, complex, as well as controversial player and manager moves in the game. All done, with several years of evidence to show for it, with accuracy and clarity.
Yet, because of his area of expertise, he is arguably not accorded the same respect that is automatically furnished onto his peers in what would be regarded as more serious news matters. It is of course true to state that what happens in relation to politics, the environment, international terrorism and many other topics greatly outweigh in importance the transfer of professional football players from one club to another. However, even a cursory glance around most of the world would tell you that football is oftentimes the most important unimportant subject in the world, such is the level of fandom, influence and economics of the modern day, interconnected global sport it has become.
Fabrizio may also, if anybody bothered to go to the effort of trying to quantify it, be the most faked public figure online today. Countless hearts will have been sent a flutter by tweets which, upon further inspection, have been issued by impostor accounts. Other than being an already tired joke, and not a particularly funny one at that, it doesn’t help to maintain and improve trust in social media platforms which are so important for any journalist nowadays. Indeed, such has been the proliferation of fake accounts in relation to Fabrizio that it even prompted an intervention from a Conservative member of the House of Lords online last summer. One does wonder what motivates an individual to go to the bother of setting up fake accounts of football journalists (underemployment springs to mind). At least a parody account is clearly stated to have that purpose and the best ones require a sense of humour intelligence that fakers could only dream of having.
To use the words put into John W Henry’s mouth by the script writers of the movie Moneyball, “The first guy through the wall, he always gets bloody.” Whilst by no means suggesting that he has uncovered a revolutionary way of doing journalism, it is hard to argue against the idea that he has become one of the best all round exponents of sports journalism in the social media age. To take the above, and some of what comes thereafter (do yourself a favour and watch the movie if you haven’t already), you don’t need to search too hard to find detractors not just amongst the transfer ravenous online supporter; there has also been one or two relics of the analog age of sports journalism who, not without a touch of glee, have sought to put him back in his box when a particular story hasn’t necessarily worked out as it originally looked as though it many. He is not trusted to the extent that he is because he gets everything right all the time; but he gets it right often enough that his followers do not drift away.
Which brings us to his now iconic indicator that a transfer is all done bar the official announcement: ‘Here We Go’. A three word saying which has come to carry more value then some national currencies; you could take it to your bank manager and have it accepted as security for a mortgage, such is its reliability. There are marketing strategists around the world who command hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees who would not have come up with a tagline that generates such trust. It should come as no surprise, that somebody as smart as him is leaning into such branding gold dust. The recent advent of his eponymous podcast surely only the first venture of many into ‘Here We Go’.
Nobody has a divine right to a place at the top of their chosen profession just by virtue of having reached it in the first place; a pitfall that has befallen more people than history would care to count. A young man with hopefully many years still ahead of him in the game, it will be interesting to see where he takes his millions of followers next. Whichever direction coverage the game takes, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the here we go guy is going to be telling us about it for some time to come.
