I loved Freddie as a player – he had everything I wanted when watching Arsenal. And I remember him returning this season with WHU – he got a huge roar of support, and blew kisses to the crowd when he went off injured.
So was it the slightest bit likely that he said all that rubbish about Arsenal and Wegner?
No of course not. Now he has said that he never even talked to the Russian magazine that printed the story. We never imagined he did.
Another bit of made up gibberish. But there is an interesting story underneath. It is this: why did all these newspapers, TV stations, radio stations and blogs not bother to check on what Freddie said.
OK, I recognise that some blogs don’t have the resources that Untold Arsenal has – we are very lucky in that regard. But for everyone else, all they had to do was to phone Freddie’s agent and say, “did he really say that?” Or, phone the Russians and say, “when and where did you do that interview?”
Either approach would do. But did they bother? Did they heck. Another mindless piece of gibberish with no foundation. It goes on day after day after day – organisations that once did pride themselves with being at least 5% accurate, now have abandoned even that smattering of reality.
Everyone from Sporting Life to the Daily Mail ran this rubbish. If they had any guts they would at least issue a wholesale apology for not bothering to check, or at best stop publishing, but of course they don’t.
