Rumours are flying and filling the pages of four sports papers in Barcelona and Madrid, but they should be taken with a pinch of salt. Here's why

A Villa in Madrid | The Spain striker 'signed' for Real in 2009

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By Ben HaywardDon’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. Silly season has started in Spain and four national sports papers have column inches to fill. And with no World Cup or European Championship this summer, that means transfers. However, it also means secrets, speculation, supposition and surrealism; some sublime – most ridiculous.Earlier this week, one newspaper reported that Neymar was joining Madrid. How did they know? Because a Catalan radio station had intercepted a text message between Madrid’s general director, Jose Angel Sanchez, and the club’s former striker, Ronaldo, asking for help from the Brazilian to sign his compatriot. Quite how this text message was intercepted – or how one intercepts a text message – wasn’t explained.Hot on the heels of that story came a tale of espionage. Both Catalan sports papers claimed Portuguese agent Jorge Mendes – whose clients include Madrid coach Jose Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo – had been spying on Barcelona in order to hike up the prices of the club’s transfer targets this summer. Serious stuff.Back to their bread and butter, the two claim Cesc Fabregas is about to join Barca. He has a pre-agreement, he has Arsene Wenger’s word, he has been convinced by Thierry Henry, he has told friends. Plenty of reasons; none substantiated. And they might be believable, had we not read them before: we know what you said last summer. Not to mention the summer before that.But it’s not just Cesc. Transfer season is a proverbial game of tennis between the Madrid and Barcelona press. Aguero will be joining Madrid. Barca want Kun. Alexis to Barcelona. Madrid in for Sanchez. Neymar set for Madrid. Barca to steal Neymar. And so it goes on. You couldn’t believe it all, even if you wanted to. And even if you did, you would be at least half wrong – and probably more than that.David Villa was all but confirmed as a Real player by the Madrid press after Florentino Perez returned as president in 2009. Dressed up in a Madrid shirt in a mock-up image on the front cover of Marca under the headline ‘Signed’, Villa was then spotted shopping in Madrid. The paper even had a reporter following the Spain striker round the clothes stores of the Spanish capital. That was the confirmation. Except it wasn’t. Villa stayed at Valencia and a year later, he signed for Barca.Then there’s the downright ridiculous. Until just a few years ago, the Madrid press were insisting Real would try to sign Lionel Messi from Barcelona – or Andres Iniesta. The signing of Luis Figo a decade ago would have been equally laughable, of course, but times have changed and both Messi and Iniesta have been at Barca from a young age. This is different.The best story of all, however, involves a little known 16-year-old Malian midfielder, Oghenne Sayalongo. The teenager was a sensation at French side Rennes, he had been scouted by Barca but had chosen to sign for Malaga, AS reported on May 27. Sounds plausible, you may think. However, not only was this untrue, but Sayalongo does not exist. The “starlet with an enormous future” had been created by users on an Internet forum and they had even created a false Twitter account for their alter-ego, who wrote enthusiastically about moving to sunny Spain. From the surreal, to the unreal.So, don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.

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