Fabrizio Romano

Solius said:
Does everyone hate him yet?

Are you not sick of the constant PR laden 'news' he breaks?
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I absolutely despise him. One for the shiteness of modern football.

He's just another click bait grifter that is monetising gossip and speculation.

He's Transfer Deadline day Jim White on steroids!

I mentioned in another thread how he was tweeting about how Cody Gakpo hadn't changed his mind on Man United, just hours before Liverpool announced that they'd signed him!

Anybody could do what he does. I don't understand how he's gained such popularity!
 
Apokalips said:
It's so weird how worked up people get by him. There is a constant need to slate him and talk down on him when it is very easy to just ignore him. I really don't get why people care so much.

Reading a tweet about transfers, etc should not illicit such reactions simply based on the person tweeting as opposed to the actual content.
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It’s because he has zero integrity and the language he uses is extremely biased for whoever has paid him to say it. He is essentially a mouthpiece for clubs to save face in certain situations or hype up their ‘project’, new tournament (see CWC) or anything else.

It’s the fact it’s presented as this straight facts transfer news when really he’s got a financial incentive to say almost all of it. “100% invested in the Chelsea project” “no doubts at all about the move” “only ever wanted this club” “completely separate deals” during those dodgy PSR swaps last summer. etc… he calls himself a journalist but never once questions what he’s told or digs deeper. Just parrots club PR. It’s deceitful and unprincipled.
 
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MaMa given red said:
I absolutely despise him. One for the shiteness of modern football.

He's just another click bait grifter that is monetising gossip and speculation.

He's Transfer Deadline day Jim White on steroids!

I mentioned in another thread how he was tweeting about how Cody Gakpo hadn't changed his mind on Man United, just hours before Liverpool announced that they'd signed him!

Anybody could do what he does. I don't understand how he's gained such popularity!
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Are those Gakpo tweets still about? I’m curious…
 
MaMa given red said:
I absolutely despise him. One for the shiteness of modern football.

He's just another click bait grifter that is monetising gossip and speculation.

He's Transfer Deadline day Jim White on steroids!

I mentioned in another thread how he was tweeting about how Cody Gakpo hadn't changed his mind on Man United, just hours before Liverpool announced that they'd signed him!

Anybody could do what he does. I don't understand how he's gained such popularity!
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Nah. Building a following of 25m isnt just about tweeting opinions. Its earned through years of breaking stories, maintaining accuracy and accessing sources most journalists cant reach. If it were that easy, go ahead try it and see how it goes.
 
The moaning about him (and others from twitter who post transfer news) is weird as feck. What kind of adult gets annoyed by such a thing
 
Apokalips said:
It's so weird how worked up people get by him. There is a constant need to slate him and talk down on him when it is very easy to just ignore him. I really don't get why people care so much.

Reading a tweet about transfers, etc should not illicit such reactions simply based on the person tweeting as opposed to the actual content.
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I concur.
 
thing that irks me most about him is that he seemingly still doesn't credit smaller journalists consistently, which is in really poor taste.

As for the rest ... just remember he's not a journalist, he's an influencer. Farming traffic is key to what he does, so he'll recycle/repost the same thing over and over again. If you can look past this as well as the other corny shite, like the damn catchphrase etc., be my guest. It's certainly not for me, but I'm not the key audience either.
 
Berbasbullet said:
That’s hilarious
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I mean it's not wrong we will have been in discussions and his preferred location I reckon. It just shows whilst they may have sources they don't know everything that's going on. That's always been the case since Teletext times though, transfer situations can change quickly.
 
Smores said:
I mean it's not wrong we will have been in discussions and his preferred location I reckon. It just shows whilst they may have sources they don't know everything that's going on. That's always been the case since Teletext times though, transfer situations can change quickly.
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I mean it must be wrong if hours later he joined Liverpool?

Surely the value Romano is supposed to be providing is real time updates?
 
Romano by all accounts works his arse off over the summer and is generally a fairly good source of transfer news.

I agree that the stuff he Tweets needs to be viewed from the lens that he serves as a mouthpiece for whoever is feeding him the information, and he's entirely uncritical of what he's told to report, but he's a fecking football transfer journalist at the end of the day. What he's reporting on is, by and large, entirely inconsequential so I'm not going to be up in arms over a perceived lack of integrity.

He's built a follower base out of being an almost constant source of updates on transfer news, and a somewhat reliable one at that. It's just not possible to get that amount of "inside information", so to speak, without building a rapport with agents, directors etc. I can't see why this would anger anyone.
 
Devil_forever said:
Guy calls 95% correctly and gets a handful wrong. He breaks more news than anyone else. I don't get all this hate.
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The "hate" - which is a term that is widely used by people who follow him to inaccurately portray people making valid points about his ethics - comes from the fact he portrays himself as a journalist, and is nothing else than an aggregator and a paid mouthpiece for agents and clubs, who contributes nothing in general. It's fine that people follow him if they feel it's necessary to read "here we go" 30mn before the official club announcement, that's the era we live in, but it's also fine to be lucid about what he is - a chancer with no ethics.
 
Berbasbullet said:
I mean it must be wrong if hours later he joined Liverpool?

Surely the value Romano is supposed to be providing is real time updates?
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Romano gets his info from clubs and agents. If they decide to cut him off or feed him wrong info there's not much he can do. The value he provides is that most of the time he's fed good info

He's not spying on them as they make deals :lol:
 
giorno said:
Romano gets his info from clubs and agents. If they decide to cut him off or feed him wrong info there's not much he can do. The value he provides is that most of the time he's fed good info

He's not spying on them as they make deals :lol:
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Then why is he reporting that Gakpo is waiting for united when he’s about to sign for Liverpool? If he’s been cut off why is he reporting saying nothing has changed?
 
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Berbasbullet said:
Then why is he reporting that Gakpo is waiting for united when he’s about to sign for Liverpool?
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Presumably because they deliberately left him out of the loop. Liverpool tend to do that a lot in general - meaning agents dealing with Liverpool are told to keep their mouths shut
 
Berbasbullet said:
I mean it must be wrong if hours later he joined Liverpool?

Surely the value Romano is supposed to be providing is real time updates?
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I don't get what you mean, he doesn't say he's joining us in that tweet or that we're favourites just that we're involved. That was accurate no?

He clearly was just unaware of how advance Liverpool were but a lot can change in a day.

I think people just have an odd expectation of them as sources. They're just relaying conversations they have with sources but doesn't mean they have the player or the club on the phone getting blow by blow updates.
 
Rooney in Paris said:
The "hate" - which is a term that is widely used by people who follow him to inaccurately portray people making valid points about his ethics - comes from the fact he portrays himself as a journalist, and is nothing else than an aggregator and a paid mouthpiece for agents and clubs, who contributes nothing in general. It's fine that people follow him if they feel it's necessary to read "here we go" 30mn before the official club announcement, that's the era we live in, but it's also fine to be lucid about what he is - a chancer with no ethics.
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He is not a chancer whatsoever he’s literally a journalist, he writes pieces occasionally for the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/24/xavi-hernandez-barcelona-talks-joan-laporta
 
UnitedSofa said:
He is not a chancer whatsoever he’s literally a journalist, he writes pieces occasionally for the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/24/xavi-hernandez-barcelona-talks-joan-laporta
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His last piece was in April 2024 :lol: This is exactly what I mean (and what I've maintained consistently in this thread, I mentioned the Guardian link last year) - he portrays himself as a journalist and has kept this affiliation with the Guardian, whereas 99.9% of his work has absolutely no journalistic integrity at all.

And yes of course he's a chancer. An unethical one at that.
 
Rooney in Paris said:
His last piece was in April 2024 :lol: This is exactly what I mean (and what I've maintained consistently in this thread, I mentioned the Guardian link last year) - he portrays himself as a journalist and has kept this affiliation with the Guardian, whereas 99.9% of his work has absolutely no journalistic integrity at all.

And yes of course he's a chancer. An unethical one at that.
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He clearly has a very good network of contacts within the industry. Not sure I'd call him a chancer

Agree about the lack of ethics
 
A lot of people are missing the point.

At the exact same time he's talking about Gakpo joining Man United, he'd already agreed a deal to join Liverpool, something he clearly had no inclination about.

Devil_forever said:
Guy calls 95% correctly and gets a handful wrong. He breaks more news than anyone else. I don't get all this hate.
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He doesn't break any news. He jumps on stories and sometimes get's them right and sometimes get's them wrong.

The only thing he has is volume. If you jump on every single transfer of a player you are going to get more right than wrong as it becomes more obvious which way a transfer is likely to go.

I'd have more respect for him if he stayed out of stories that he had little or no information about.
 
I think he’s decent , gets a lot of things right. I don’t get the hatred it’s his job to get clicks etc .
 
To be honest he serves a purpose for people like me who can't be bothered to get to know all the "tier levels" for journalists.

Whether he only does tap ins at the last minute, he does seem to make sure that it's the right info 99% of the time.
 
TsuWave said:
He doesn’t. Ornstein has credited him with/for multiple exclusives
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That's good too then.

To me the biggest service he does provide though is sort of being a confirmation account for the layman like me who doesn't want to learn if x is a good source for one club but not Utd or whatever.

I think the catch phrase is a bit cringy but it adds to him making a good living so whatever.
 
Red00012 said:
I think he’s decent , gets a lot of things right. I don’t get the hatred it’s his job to get clicks etc .
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People got worked up over Gapko... United didn't want to spend money and the player wanted a move... what's that got to do with Fabrizio? He was reporting the current state at the time.

Football landscape changes all the time, he can't read people's minds.

He reports what he is told, if a club doesn't bid... how is it his fault?
 
He's a great aggregator and that is what matters to most Football fans. Most people don't care about who the actual source is. All they want to know is the transfer update and how reliable the update is. With Romano, you conveniently get all the updates in one place.

He has marketed himself brilliantly and is more popular than most top flight players these days.

Also, he's much better at interviews and communication than the other transfer journalists. Likeable guy.
 
The funniest thing about him is how for some clubs he reports the transfer with little specifics on transfer deals; and for others he goes into excruciating detail for every bonus, wages, agent fees, taxes, exchange rate fluctuations and the like. It's so transparent which clubs feed him information sometimes.
 
TenonTen said:
He's a great aggregator and that is what matters to most Football fans. Most people don't care about who the actual source is. All they want to know is the transfer update and how reliable the update is. With Romano, you conveniently get all the updates in one place.

He has marketed himself brilliantly and is more popular than most top flight players these days.

Also, he's much better at interviews and communication than the other transfer journalists. Likeable guy.
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Likeable indeed.

https://defector.com/why-is-soccers-most-famous-scoopster-doing-pr-work-for-mason-greenwood
 
TenonTen said:
He's a great aggregator and that is what matters to most Football fans. Most people don't care about who the actual source is. All they want to know is the transfer update and how reliable the update is. With Romano, you conveniently get all the updates in one place.

He has marketed himself brilliantly and is more popular than most top flight players these days.

Also, he's much better at interviews and communication than the other transfer journalists. Likeable guy.
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But they should. This is where I don't totally buy the "he's harmless" angle, he's harmful to journos doing the in-depth work and putting in the miles. And that's without even touching upon the "likeable" part, which is frankly deluded.
 
MaMa given red said:
Likeable indeed.

https://defector.com/why-is-soccers-most-famous-scoopster-doing-pr-work-for-mason-greenwood
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Rooney in Paris said:
But they should. This is where I don't totally buy the "he's harmless" angle, he's harmful to journos doing the in-depth work and putting in the miles. And that's without even touching upon the "likeable" part, which is frankly deluded.
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I'm not saying he's actually a good person. He comes across as fairly likeable in his interviews and interactions with the media and famous Football fan channels which is why the majority of Football fans like him. That is how he's perceived by fans.

I know he does PR for clubs and players. I agree that he can be harmful for the lesser known local journalists doing the actual hard work. No arguments there.
 
He can be harmful for smaller journalist if he steals their stories without crediting them, which I believe he does on occasion
 
MaMa given red said:
I absolutely despise him. One for the shiteness of modern football.

He's just another click bait grifter that is monetising gossip and speculation.

He's Transfer Deadline day Jim White on steroids!

I mentioned in another thread how he was tweeting about how Cody Gakpo hadn't changed his mind on Man United, just hours before Liverpool announced that they'd signed him!

Anybody could do what he does. I don't understand how he's gained such popularity!
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I don't really like him but equally he isn't really the problem. The problem are all the muppets who follow him, retweet his nonsense and engage with him. However, it is not just him as by and large everyone on social media is a grifter and charlatan who then get elevated for absolute drival.

For me, anyone that is on social media who engages with any influencer is worse than the influencer themselves as they are essentially the enablers.
 
TenonTen said:
He's a great aggregator and that is what matters to most Football fans. Most people don't care about who the actual source is. All they want to know is the transfer update and how reliable the update is. With Romano, you conveniently get all the updates in one place.

He has marketed himself brilliantly and is more popular than most top flight players these days.

Also, he's much better at interviews and communication than the other transfer journalists. Likeable guy.
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This. Haters gonna hate
 
Rooney in Paris said:
The "hate" - which is a term that is widely used by people who follow him to inaccurately portray people making valid points about his ethics - comes from the fact he portrays himself as a journalist, and is nothing else than an aggregator and a paid mouthpiece for agents and clubs, who contributes nothing in general. It's fine that people follow him if they feel it's necessary to read "here we go" 30mn before the official club announcement, that's the era we live in, but it's also fine to be lucid about what he is - a chancer with no ethics.
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This. People who try to diminish fair critique as "hate" just come across as insecure and incapable of understanding critical thought.
 
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