Even in dark times, the idealism of some football fans remains a beautiful thing to behold. Suggestions over the past week that the Glazer family were considering selling Manchester United to a certain party were greeted with delight in various quarters. As one United supporter positively willing the deal to happen put it: “We deserve better.” Better, in this case, would be Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman, a man whom journalistic cliche demands we style as “in the news for all the wrong reasons”. But hey – nobody’s perfect.

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Certainly not the media outlets who ran with the “story” that the Saudi crown prince was preparing a bid for United. On the one hand, everything you’ve heard is true, and newspapers are mostly dying on their arses. On the other, some complete cobblers surfaced by the Daily Star can still put 5% on United’s share price.

That was where we were by Monday afternoon, as shares in the club rose significantly on Wall Street as rumours of a takeover “swirled”. I say the cobblers was “surfaced by” the Daily Star, because the notion that the Saudis might be about to buy United seems to have originated in the even more tenuously informed corners of the internet rumour mill. The claim’s first appearance in what we might solemnly refer to as legacy media was on the Star’s website on 12 October, which stated that United fans had “blitzed social media to welcome claims” that the club might be sold to MBS.

The aforementioned claims these notional United fans were apparently welcoming were themselves somewhat hand-wavingly attributed to “web football forums and Twitter”. The top source the Daily Star report quoted was @Daniel_K23, an anonymous United fan with 253 Twitter followers, who had declared: “I’m hearing #MUFC reps met with Arabs to potentially buy us could be huge [sic]”. But where was @Daniel_K23 hearing this? Judging by his preceding retweet, from a Spanish part‑time freelance journalist called Diego Martínez. By the next day, Martínez was using this very Daily Star report to confirm the tweet on which it had seemingly been indirectly based. “Told you,” he declared. Meanwhile, @Daniel_K23 was game-theorising the potential impact this phantasmal deal would have on United’s short- to medium-term success on the pitch. Or, to use his own words: “if we get arabs its over, becuz their SPEND”.

To repeat: 5% on the share price. And yet, “Saudis to buy United” remains nothing more than the sort of thing it sounds like those sort of people might do, considering the sort of things the sort of rulers in that region have already done. Meanwhile, the Daily Star’s suggestion that fans were blitzing social media seems to have been accepted uncritically. They quoted someone with the Twitter handle @RabonaNutmeg stating “Saudi rumours are rife”, in a tweet which garnered a single like.

Still, where we’re going, we don’t need likes, because we have SEO aggregation. In fairly short order, papers from the Sun to the Express to the Telegraph to the Mail had taken up the tale – reports which were then noted by the BBC’s John Simpson. Is there a point at which there are so many reports about something for which there is no apparent evidence that SEO aggregation makes the story magically true? Not really, alas – though someone probably needs to point that out to United’s share price.

In the absence of any facts, or even quotes from anonymous sources, media outlets were forced to look for ways in which to pad out a story which they may or may not have realised was pretty much sourceable to internet randos. Luckily, there are various twos and twos out of which five could be made. Last year, for instance, Manchester United committed to a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia, in which the club agreed to help the country develop its football industry. Signing this historic accord, the United managing director, Richard Arnold, declared: “The club has a longstanding relationship with Saudi Arabia.” Richard probably won’t be shouting much about that from the rooftops in the current climate, but back then he was keen to point out that “our partnership with Saudi Telecom is the longest running of all our commercial partners”. Well quite. United aren’t some Johnny-come-latelies – they were partnering with the Saudis 10 years before women were even allowed into football stadiums in the country.

Back in the present day, meanwhile, the takeover stories continued to demand fuel. Much was made of the fact Avram Glazer is flying to Saudi Arabia this week for a conference at which he had been long scheduled to speak. This was judged to be “fuelling talk” of a takeover of the club by his Saudi hosts. As for why the takeover was a thing that might happen, that was simple. “It’s been claimed the wealthy Middle Eastern country are keen to buy the Old Trafford club from current owners the Glazer family,” noted the Daily Star, who by now appeared to be stepping away from the fact they were essentially the ones who’d been doing the claiming. “It’s said Saudi investors are keen to diversify their investments away from oil – and see football powerhouse United as a good option.” Interesting financial planning, there. I’m not sure precisely how many barrels a day of Victor Lindelöf #content the Saudis would need to produce to consider it a credible diversification from being an effing petrostate, but it is believed to be Quite A Lot.

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So that’s where we’re at. Are the Saudis buying Manchester United? On this evidence – or rather, this lack of evidence – the answer is surely no. Still, perhaps the kingdom is grateful for even the small distraction such stories provide. Indeed, it is a testament to the hermetically sealed world of football news that barely any of these accounts made mention of the main reason Bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia has been all over the news (and SEO aggregators) for many days. Namely, the disappearance and suspected torture and murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. As we know, football is much more serious than a matter of life and death. But if the past week is anything to go by, filling the football pages is five points more serious still.