It's summer. Despite the best efforts of the Women's World Cup and the Copa America, England, once again, is sweltering under a low, toxic fug of transfer rumours. As gossip levels break records, we speak to an expert about what's going on, and how you can keep yourself safe out there.
The transfer market will destroy your mind
We speak EXCLUSIVELY to an expert in the rumor mill, who warns that unless you take care, football’s summer will eat you alive.
Hello! Please introduce yourself.
Good morning. My name is Calamity Flan, and I am an Assistant Professor of Mercatophrenology at the University of Peckham.
First things first. Is this really the worst summer of transfers of all time?
Yes and no. While we're seeing more and more people admitted to the hospital than ever before, and also a marked rise in other, less serious symptoms, we're not quite at record transfer levels yet. This summer hasn't quite hit the heights of the first couple of years of Abramovich at Chelsea, or last summer when Manchester United exploded. But it is early days — we're not even in July.
These hospitalizations, then.
Well. So far, there are no recorded deaths as a direct result of a transfer rumor. But above and beyond all the expected misery on social media and radio phone-ins, we’re seeing huge upsurges in reported fevers, blood pressure is through the roof and there have been unconfirmed reports of temporary hospitalizations across Europe.
Unconfirmed?
Yes, these are rumors only, I should stress. Anecdotes. A man in Italy kept overnight after breaking down at the sight of a Paul Pogba photoshop. A woman in the north of England taken in after being found in a shop screaming "Where are the quotes? Where are the quotes?" at a copy of the Daily Star. Nothing too serious or permanent, thankfully.
So what’s going on?
The key to our research has been to break down what, exactly, a transfer rumor is, and what exactly they do to a person’s mind. Human beings are imaginative creatures, and that’s the weakness here. Every rumor, however outlandish or unlikely, sparks into being a ‘what if?’ What if so-and-so did decide to swap Barcelona for Birmingham? That would be good. Things would be better.
And then it doesn’t happen.
Right. Almost all of them don’t. And even though everybody knew it wasn’t going to happen and everybody knew that it was nonsense of the purest sort, it’s still disappointing. The imagined world can’t help but make the real world look shabby. In effect, the rumour mill is a constant cycle of dashed hopes; a never-ending procession of other, better worlds first conjured into being then snatched away. Want that? Tough. Want that? Tough. Want that? Tough. Every one a tiny broken dream; every time another little scar. Betrayal heaped on betrayal.
OK, so —
And the whole modern machinery of football consumption is designed to facilitate this heartbreak. FIFA Ultimate Team and Football Manager, telling you that there’s absolutely no reason Lionel Messi shouldn’t decide to see out the rest of his career where you want him to. Club PR people making all the right noises about competing in the market, about reinforcing the team. Tabloids and gossip sites and online ITKs and even the broadsheets, these days, breathlessly cycling rumours round and round. Sources dripping out of every pore. The world wants you and makes you credulous, because credulous people buy things. They buy season tickets, and they buy stories. And then the world kicks you in the face.
Right. But what —
Which runs everything! It's no wonder that new signings -- the ones that actually happen, that is -- are being given less and less time to settle. By the time they arrive, they're carrying the expectation not only of their own contribution but all those other frustrated non-signings. If he goes to Manchester United, Morgan Schneiderlin won't just have to be Morgan Schneiderlin. He'll have to be Bastian Schweinsteiger, Toni Kroos, Paul Pogba, Wesley Sneijder, Arturo Vidal, Axel Witsel and all the rest of them as well.
And if —
And just think about all the weird ways that all this manifests itself. Fans holding up shopping lists in the crowd. Gonzalo Higuain, booed at the Emirates Cup. The hideous pantomime of depraved consumption that is Transfer Deadline Day. Does this look healthy? Does this look like a culture to be proud of, to enjoy? It’s a wonder nobody has died, frankly. Swimming in actual sewage is very bad for your health. Swimming in metaphorical sewage can only do terrible things to your brain.
Sewage.
Sewage.
Sewage?
Fundamentally, yes.
Do you ... do you have any advice for, er ... swimmers that would like to avoid the sewage?
Stay out of the water? Or at least, know what’s in the water before getting into it, and protect yourself accordingly. Get equipped with the snorkel of scepticism. Make your journey in the pedalo of preemptive resignation. Wear bullshit-proof budgie smugglers. This analogy has probably been stretched further than is useful, but you take my point. There’s a healthy balance between enjoying the nonsense and being consumed by it; don’t let the world push you over.
Because if you can’t maintain that balance, then you will, heh, fall overboard?
...
Sorry.
That’s OK.
Thank you for your time.
You’re welcome.
Sorry again.
Really, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.
So ... what do you reckon? Bastian Schweinsteiger to United?
What? Have you not heard a word I’ve said? Am I just here to ... oh, go on then. Nah. He’ll stay. And Sergio Ramos is just angling for a new contract.
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