Addicted to fiction

So this is kind of tough for me to write but it’s something I really need to get off my chest because frankly, I need help.

(Deep breath)

I have an addiction.  I know, I know.  Intense, right?  The only way I am going to get past this is with the help of others, so please help me if you can.  

So here it goes:  I, Kevin Dugan, am addicted to soccer transfer rumors.

That wasn’t what you were expecting, was it?  You probably don’t even think this a real addiction.  Well, friend, you’re wrong, as this addiction is, in some ways, ruling my life.  Each and every morning during the summer months (and January), I wake up and immediately check Twitter, my email and my favorite blogs to see if any big names have changed clubs.  I do this every single morning.  I can’t stop.  Not even if I wanted to.

I should want to.  Every summer, players all across the world are bought and sold and fans wait with baited breath hoping for news that their team is signing one of soccer’s superstars.  They all hope Neymar, Christiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani or Robin van Persie is headed to their team.

As an Arsenal fan, I’ve never known the feeling of a top player arriving and immediately catapulting us to the top of the proverbial food chain.  They only ever leave.  But that doesn’t stop me from hoping every summer will be different and hoping every transfer rumor I can possibly find about my club comes true.  Which is my problem.

See, most rumors that are out there are just plain false.  Inherently, rumors tend to be fiction, but even your most ardent fiction fan has to admit that the scope of the current transfer rumor mill is spinning out of control.  

Many of the publications and websites that specialize in transfer speculation have no qualms about making things up and passing them off as fact.  A rumor of a player moving from one club to another can start anywhere and inexplicably gain steam.  One day Cesc Fabregas is going to Manchester United.  The next he’s coming back to Arsenal and the next he’s staying at Barcelona.  During that time the player hasn’t said a word about any of this nor have any of the clubs involved and yet this speculation is splashed on the back covers of newspapers and leading sports broadcasts.

This dissemination of false information has increased thanks to Twitter.  Every Joe is reporting from everywhere that they saw so and so at such and such airport with a representative from club X.  Oftentimes players seemingly have the ability to be in two places at once.  While I believe that many of these players are special, I highly doubt they have developed far enough to be in two places at the same time.

This brings me to my point.  It’s become impossible to tell what’s true and what’s not.  This is what happens when social media becomes such an integral part of our culture that people treat the individuals they our following on Twitter as legit sources.  We *football* fans are currently living in our own version of Wonderland, where we never truly know what’s actually going on.  And the only thing we can do is throw our hands up and pray that we don’t go crazy.

Or we could stop reading these rumors all together.  But that’s the problem with addictions.  It’s a lot easier to say you’re going to stop than to actually do it.