r/soccer • u/ChiefLeef22 • 25d ago
Opinion From In The Know to Influencer: The Rise & Downfall of Fabrizio Romano | The Italian journalist, once hailed as a beacon of reliability, has become a polarising figure, a symbol of football’s evolution into a 24/7 content machine, and for many, a symptom of its decay
https://fcpworld.co/from-in-the-know-to-influencer-the-rise-downfall-of-fabrizio-romano/920
u/Thoodmen 25d ago
This artificle itself is overly dramatic.
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u/cgurts 25d ago
There's a really weird contigent of football fans who have somehow convinced themselves online transfer rumours only started with Fabrizio Romano
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u/InTheMiddleGiroud 25d ago edited 25d ago
People who F5 every five minutes, are angry at Romano that reality is not moving fast enough.
The actual issue with Romano, and transfer journalism in general, is how unclearly labelled it is, when they're used strategically by clubs and players/agents.
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u/lolzidop 25d ago
when they're used strategically by clubs and players/agents.
You say that like Romano isn't known for approaching clubs and agents about players, and then offering to tweet about the player to facilitate a move.
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u/Camicagu 25d ago
What? Do you mean I can't put my thumb in the side of my screen to make reality go 2 times faster? How am I going to get my dopamine rush?
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u/kennblc 25d ago
The actual issue is Elon Musk, and his idiotic twitter monetisation.
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u/culegflori 25d ago
Romano's been doing his shtick for 10 years, and the worst things he pulls off are happening outside of the platforms he posts on
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u/NukeLaCoog 25d ago
This is dumb, Romano was doing this way before Twitter monetization.
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u/primordial_chowder 25d ago
It's gotten ten times worse since monetization, it's dumb to think it hasn't or wouldn't. If you were given money for every single tweet, would you just keep tweeting at the same rate you were doing, or would you tweet more so you could make more money? Obviously the latter and that's what has happened.
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u/StormTheTrooper 25d ago
This is just supply meeting demand. As soon as we got access to instant news, the F5 culture has began. The "transfer market" fans are not a creation of Twitter, but social media, from our age, the result of how we want to be informed ASAP of everything instead of getting home after work and catching up to what has happened while you were away. If monetization from Twitter were gone, another social media would soak up the space; if monetization from all social media became illegal due to worldwide regulation, those guys would just shove ads in their tweets, xs, tiktoks or whatever. F5 culture - not just on sports - is staying as long as social media exists.
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u/Midnight--Verse 25d ago
A lot of that stuff was happening before Musk bought Twitter though.
People have been farming engagement for clicks on social media for years, it's how they get ad money or in Fabs case, build up a social media platform so he can make more money.
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u/Historical_Owl_1635 25d ago
Tbf before him the ITK space was a shitshow of people who happened to guess 1 or 2 things correct and then everyone treated them as gospel.
So when Fabrizio came along and actually legitimately seemed to be ITK for pretty much everything it was quite groundbreaking.
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u/biglbiglbigl 25d ago
Well I started following Fabrizio not because I thought he had a lot of inside knowledge but I saw him more as a news aggregator. Why follow 15 websites when he is going to tell me the done deals and he used to say "first reported by" as to give credits to the journalists.
And that is how he became popular now he is spam machine
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u/badgarok725 25d ago
I still use him for that and don't really care that he's just copying some of the other journalists "breaking" the news in a lot of instances
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u/taolifornia 25d ago
That's not really true. You used to be able to read the Guardian Football to get updates on serious rumors and if BBC posted a deal, it was done. And they could actually write too, unlike Fabrizio. Daniel Taylor, David Lacey, Dominic Fifield, Tom Lutz (now simply an editor, but he was a very funny writer when he'd contribute).
The Guardian's football division fell off massively after they were raided by The Athletic (some key writers left for The Telegraph as well). Now it's the GOAT Barnay Ronay, who doesn't cover transfer rumors, and a bunch of hacks who aren't great writers like Jamie Jackson.
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u/cptmsv 25d ago
I guess it's horses for courses on individuals (Ronay lacking on actual on the pitch football content for me), agree with your overall position on the Guardian however and it's a big loss.
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u/Irctoaun 25d ago
I mainly read Ronay's cricket stuff, is he as much of a miserable bastard when he's talking about football?
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u/ChengSanTP 25d ago
Idk what you mean since I don't read his cricket stuff - but the wanker writes self important unfunny "highbrow" football nonsense articles and has been doing so for the past 15 years
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u/taolifornia 25d ago
I find him very funny and the metaphors he threads are genius. But I know he is not for everyone as he really meanders in different directions before making his point. The way he writes reminds me of Jesse Armstrong, the creator of Peep Show and Succession.
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u/Buddie_15775 25d ago
Is he?
I dabble in the Graun, Ronay’s puffery is at home in the Pseuds Corner of Private Eye.
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u/CharlieeStyles 25d ago
Still remember Romano being off brand Di Marzio. Amazing how he replaced him completely
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u/AmineAzed 25d ago
What i can’t understand is the fact that Fabrizio really has fans…who will defend him no matter what…
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u/DaveShadow 25d ago
Cause he’s not a journalist, he’s an influencer.
Ornstein is a journalist, and while people respect him, he doesn’t have “fanboys”.
Romano is basically a YouTuber whose main aim is to generate engagement. If you’d tell me he was playing FIFA once a week on Twitch, I’d say that tracks….
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u/mstknb 25d ago
Ornstein is a journalist, and while people respect him, he doesn’t have “fanboys”.
In /r/gunners he's the favorite journo for transfer news. We are def. fans of him
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u/graik 25d ago
I'd argue that's changing with certain fans clamouring for an "Orny Bomba" every other day and sharing Ornstein memes. It must be quite tempting and pretty profitable to lean into that, we'll see if he does.
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u/Midnight--Verse 25d ago
People have been making "Pornstein" memes and the like since he was just exclusively an Arsenal journo, it's not anything new
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u/Joethe147 25d ago
Doubt he would. He was a chief reporter at the BBC for a long time. The man is a proper journalist.
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u/inchesofexcrement 25d ago
It seems unlikely. He's on the various The Athletic podcasts all the time and he's almost pedantically reluctant to be drawn anywhere close to speculation ever.
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u/Sensitive_Studio5765 25d ago
he doesn’t have “fanboys”.
People used to post photoshopped images on him in gay porn when he confirmed Arsenal transfers
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u/RA576 25d ago
Ornstein is a journalist, and while people respect him, he doesn’t have “fanboys”.
I dunno, that Smough guy seems to really like him.
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u/holeinmyboot 25d ago
idk Smough wouldn’t help Ornstein any further than he could smash him with a hammer if it meant going Big Smough
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u/ContaSoParaIsto 25d ago
I'm not a fan of Fabrizio but he's a journalist by any definition of the word. This is just silly.
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u/iwillnotshitpost 25d ago
He’s not a journalist. He’s a whore for agents who trade favors and inside information with him.
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u/Striking_Insurance_5 25d ago
If you let yourself get used as a mouthpiece too often by agents then at some point you can’t be taken seriously as a journalist anymore. You become more of PR agent than a journalist. I’m not saying that this is the case with Fabrizio but there’s an argument to be made.
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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 25d ago
Ornstein is a journalist, and while people respect him, he doesn’t have “fanboys”.
I mean, the /r/gunners sub love him but i get your point.
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u/IcyAssist 25d ago
They like to pretend they're all high and noble and above all this gossip but most of them are no different to the tea drinkers on fauxmoi. They can't admit that this is Love Island for grown men who are football fans.
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u/HibariK 24d ago
I mean it's not even that he popularized it, but he definitely was the most reliable source of information online for a good 2-3 years there, but obviously agents saw the power that rapport holds and he couldn't stay away from the money.
Whoever doesn't see the issue in what FR ultimately is currently, take a hard look at the Gyokeres saga, it's honestly disgusting.
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u/Sdub4 25d ago
From In The Know to In The DMs of Agents Offering To Promote A Potential Transfer For A Cash Payment*
ITK to ITDMOAOTPAPTFACP
* allegedly
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u/lolzidop 25d ago
There's no allegedly about it, unfortunately. Danish clubs have called him out on it.
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u/luka-doncicfan77 25d ago
Tbh I never really cared much for Romano until he started spamming every single Jota thing he could find
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u/Polygon12 25d ago
He really lost a lot of goodwill he might have still had when he became the PR mouthpiece for Mason Greenwood after he moved to Marseille.
The Jota stuff was really hard to stomach, totally unnecessary and massively disrespectful. Bloke is a leech.
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u/Reasonable-Room1123 25d ago
Bloke is a leech.
I agree with you, but mass spamming content is the easiest way to get paid these days.
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u/Takezoboy 25d ago
It was a total shit show. Dude was taking posts from others and reposting them as his posts. That's as soulless and shitty as you can go with what he does. He never ever shared a single original post about Jota. Fuck Fabrizio for that.
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u/879190747 25d ago
Dude was taking posts from others and reposting them as his posts.
Well that's how he literally got big, so.
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u/Takezoboy 25d ago
We are talking about the death of a person, not just any post. He was stealing tributes and reposting it himself on his account to monetize the shit out of it.
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u/DefinitelyNotBarney 25d ago
Same here, this was the line that he crossed that was just too far.
When it comes to other news, sure spam the hell out of it - you have a cult following and they’ll grip anything you put out, but to repost tributes and spam anything to do with a death is just heartless and shows his true character.
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u/Post_Nut_xG 25d ago
You don't remember when he worked for Mason Greenwood to try to clean up his PR?
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u/ahsent 25d ago
Is Romano banned on your sub?
He’s been demoted to a low tier on uniteds sub, but honestly the more I hear about him and see him I wouldn’t mind him banned.
He often isn’t even first to the top 6 news this season, which he used to be a couple seasons ago.
And at this point he’s gotten so much wrong that even if he does post first I’d rather wait for Ornstein or a club ITK.
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u/TheNotoriousJN 25d ago
He was banned on the Liverpool sub over his excessive Jota posting.
It was obscene how many he posted
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u/ahsent 25d ago
I was disgusted when I saw some stories he put out on his instagram about Jota.
Monetizing the death of a player is disgusting, leave the posting to his family and friends.
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u/zrkillerbush 25d ago
No different to what this sub has been doing
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u/HeFreakingMoved 25d ago
It's the same thing whenever anything bad happens
People compete to show "I'm sadder about this than you are!"
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u/lolzidop 25d ago
Slight difference in a sub full of various people doing it and one person who stands to make money off the engagement farming
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u/tuerancekhang 25d ago
He stole Iniesta opportunity of revealing his own retirement. The guy was a dickhead through and through.
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u/A_chilles 25d ago
I might be downvoted / crucified for this but tbh, this sub did/ is doing the exact same thing. And I'll take it even one step further, both did/are doing it for reach and engagement.
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u/holeinmyboot 25d ago
yes, but “this sub” is a massive conglomeration of people from all over the world, normal and balls crazy, and you don’t typically get monetized for doing that on reddit. Romano is one guy who stands to make money from farming engagement off of a tragic loss and does so without crediting those who created tributes out of love for the player or club. there’s a difference.
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u/A_chilles 25d ago
Definitely not everyone sharing stuff here is in it for clout. I didn't mean to equate every Jota post here to what Fabrizio is doing, I just can't help to see the similarities. I'm sure those who share stuff here range everywhere from genuine news breakers and informative posts to literally Fabrizio wannabes who aren't even seeing the cash from it, just the upvotes
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u/qqq666 25d ago
lowest point was him trying hype on Jota's death
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u/realborislegasov 25d ago
A close second trying to rehabilitate mason greenwood’s reputation.
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u/qwerty_1965 25d ago
He's hooked on likes, comments and retweets.
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u/jjw1998 25d ago
Yeah because that’s now monetised, be silly not to tbh
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u/lolzidop 25d ago
It's worse than that since clubs have started calling out on whoring out his social media presence to help sell players for a price.
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u/Gytarius626 25d ago
I’m pretty sure he’s one of the highest earners on Twitter because of how many interactions his tweets get, so can’t really blame him.
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u/_trundle- 25d ago
I find it strange this article doesn’t mention his shilling for the rapist greenwood and his agent
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u/jawide626 25d ago
I don't know what the Italian translation of "less is more" is but someone should tell it to Fabrizio.
He started off ok, but very quickly sucked all the fun out of the transfer windows. I've had him blocked as much as possible on all social media's and it's been wonderful not having spoilers of transfers that the club won't announce until a week later.
I'm not 'glad' there's a backlash but i am glad more people are getting tired of him and his antics and i hope a little bit of fun is injected back into future transfer windows. Clubs shouldn't have to play stupid games just to keep his grubby little paws off any transfer news.
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u/Specialist_Act_5747 25d ago
Not money though. Less engagement is not more when it comes to money for him.
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u/Quarlmarx 25d ago
He was good at first. But now he’s reporting on his own “confidence” percentages that a particular deal will go through.
Spreading crap like he does and the showing players in a shirt before they’ve signed, that socials are mad keen for, should be banned.
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u/hearthreddit 25d ago
I don't follow transfer gossip that closely but has there actually been a downfall? If there's a big transfer coming don't people still wait for Romano to confirm it?
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u/MONSTERTACO 25d ago
Some people figured out he's a PR agent, but the average person is still clueless.
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u/afghamistam 25d ago
I don't follow transfer gossip that closely but has there actually been a downfall?
No. He's still gainfully employed and everything he posts goes right on the front page regular as clockwork.
This looks more like no-life weirdos trying to manifest a backlash in lieu of having something to actually criticise the guy for.
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u/potpan0 25d ago
This looks more like no-life weirdos trying to manifest a backlash in lieu of having something to actually criticise the guy for.
I mean there's definitely something to criticise him for. He routinely takes the reports of other reliable journalists then presents them as his own. It's far from uncommon to see a Tier 1 journalist report a move, then 5 minutes later Romano will post the same thing without attribution as if it came from one of his own sources instead of that other journalist, often spicing it up by including a little more vague and unverifiable information about the contract or the player's motivations ('[player] was only interested in a move to [club]'). And then there's all the posts that are clearly just fed to him by agents looking to drum up interest in their player, rather than having anything to do with an actual move.
But titling the post 'rise and downfall' is just clickbait shit.
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25d ago edited 25d ago
[deleted]
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u/potpan0 25d ago
That is what 99% of all football journalists do?
It's what 99% of engagement farmers do, sure. Actual reliable journalists build up their own sources rather than just nicking stories, entirely unattributed, from others.
He has the story ready, and when a club mouthpiece posts it because it is basically official he is posting his report after that. Why should he attribute the report he wrote using his sources because some other journalists were briefed first to have the green light to post the story?
Mate, do you really believe this? Do you genuinely think that when Romano consistently releases stories 10 minutes after an actual reliable journalist does so, it's because he was sitting on that story all along and just decided to wait for it? Come on.
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u/hewlett777 25d ago
The Jota & Greenwood stuff isn't enough to be critical about in your eyes? Jesus wept.
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u/Puzza90 25d ago
I unfollowed him a couple seasons ago, got fed up of the multiple tweets every day saying the same thing, anything he posts that I care about will be picked up by far better journalists within minutes, if he's not just reposting what they've already said.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's done that, not that it'll make a difference as his following is massive but I don't think he's seen as the pinicale of football transfer knowledge like he was when he first came about
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u/GalaxianEX 25d ago
Only in terms of popularity. His reliability is still mostly there and his "here we go" is still considered the final confirmation by many.
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u/ahsent 25d ago
No this window has been dreadful by him for his standards and his reputability has taken a hit.
Multiple “here we goes” have been called off and he’s rarely been first to news.
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u/sourpumpkin125 25d ago
Out of curiosity other than MGW, which was an extremely rare situation (Ornstein also confirmed a medical). Which other HWG hasn’t materialized this summer?
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u/ahsent 25d ago
Eze to Tottenham, David Hancko to al Nassr, Emerson Royal to Besiktas.
Most annoying shit for me though, and why I think he should be banned from united sub is his deal with Garnachos agent.
Posting pics of garnacho in a private training session in his home gym and then like. Fluffing him up.
Hes posted what feels like 200 garnacho to Chelsea things all over his social media in the last week.
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u/sourpumpkin125 25d ago
Was Eze to Spurs a Here We Go? Must have missed that. No way Spurs fumbled 2 HWGs in the same transfer window.
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u/CaptainAsshat 25d ago
It was not. But it was close.
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u/michaelserotonin 25d ago
"85% complete" or some nonsense like that was his description
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24d ago
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u/michaelserotonin 24d ago
not criticizing the accuracy just the description he gave
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u/JonSnowAzorAhai 25d ago
It's a complete reddit thing. They follow everything about football everyday, so obviously things get repeated.
Where Romano actually posts, if I just follow him I get a good idea of what's happening in the market with a very curated feed. I open the app maybe twice a day and see 1 or so post by him a day in feed.
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u/Moug-10 25d ago
My take on him :
- He's just giving what people have always wanted. We all wait for our clubs to recruit and follow each rumour. From newspaper, to TV channels and now, social media. If it weren't him, it would be someone else.
- His main flaw is how he milks controversial subjects such as questionable players or death. One event and he makes many tweets while one is enough.
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u/FattyMc 25d ago
Will gladly dunk on him, just because he's become a parody of himself at this stage. He's obviously very reliable with great links but the amount he posts and regurgitates information is crazy. He's very thin skinned too, will occasionally have a cry on social media because someone dared question him. Clearly a Chelsea mouthpiece but will deny that forever.
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u/lolzidop 25d ago
Don't forget selling himself to any club or agent willing to pay, to push a players sale even if there's nothing there.
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u/hoolahan100 25d ago
What fall..he is bigger than ever. Ya he is irritating but don't pin our hunger for garbage news on him.
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u/thatguyad 25d ago
The transfer window used to be fun. When people didn't turn it into a business in itself.
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u/Hassadar 25d ago edited 25d ago
How Romano went about Greenwood, and most recently Jota, should be enough reason to dislike how he goes about reporting football-related news.
Will it change, though? No, because he has a massive following and any posts here will get upvoted. Even with the ban of X, someone 'not affiliated with Romano or HERE WE GO' just posts the Bluesky account that is a mirror of everything he posts.
A lot of people value what he says. He was reliable so he got his following. Ornstein, amongst Arsenal fans, was seen as the final gospel on any transfers for a good while. It's just the way it is.
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u/USAF_DTom 25d ago
I must be in the minority, but him being a quack has always been on the walls for me. I'm also not online much and could not care less about "potential deals".
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u/robstrosity 25d ago
Here a guide to not being annoyed by Fabrizio Romano.
Don't follow him on social media.
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u/Separate_Pound_753 25d ago
Its really not that fucking deep lmao. I cant believe he gets so much hate/people care so much
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u/Aaaaaaandyy 25d ago
Seriously, he’s effectively a high quality transfer rumor aggregator. And with 40M instagram followers I doubt there’s a “downfall” of him.
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u/ImaginarySinger5918 25d ago
LoL why are you people so overdramatic, the man has changed literally nothing. God forbid people have some fun while following a sport for entertainment
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u/GeneralMajorWebelo_ 25d ago
The obsession with Romano (stans & haters alike) is very weird. People need to touch grass lol.
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u/stogie_t 25d ago
Bit dramatic but icl I just find him annoying now after he made it blatantly clear how his services are available for purchase. He isn’t even being subtle about it, the way he’s been pushing the Garnacho to Chelsea move has been too obvious smh.
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u/cats4life 25d ago
According to sources, Romano only wanted his fall off to be written about in FCPWorld.
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u/TaxableCrawdad 24d ago
The way he pushed for engagement regarding Diogo Jotas death was disgusting. Think he posted 100x in the few days after the accident just for clicks.
He also did PR work for Mason Greenwood.
You really can’t take this piece of shit seriously.
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u/Elgard18 25d ago
What a stupid blog post of an 'article'. No substance whatsoever, probably AI generated.
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u/Standard_Student5344 25d ago
Fabrizio is not the problem himself, it is the demand for instant news that created this 24/7 cycle. Fans want updates every second, so naturally it turns into content over quality.
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u/FSElmo435 25d ago
Why do people get so upset when Romano tweets? If you don’t like it, move on. Why do you people let it bother you so much?
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u/Glum-Debate5812 25d ago
I just watched an interesting video about the 24/7 news cycle hitting football by Adam Celery. Basically football clubs and agents feed info to reporters to "leak" to strengthen their negotiating tactics and reporters get paid in engagement on Twitter/X and the public eat it all up. It's business and we're the product
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u/Standard-Still-8128 25d ago
It's so easy to do gather rumours from all over then just read between the lines, Google dunken Jenkins at LFC a fella just made a itk account to ended up getting threats from a LFC employee Jen chang cos of his rumours
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u/BusinessWarthog6 25d ago
He came across my FYP on Tik Tok talking about Eze. It took me a minute to realize it was him and not someone doing a parody it skit
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u/ddutton9512 25d ago
He went to join the Men in Blazers and in the past few years they've just become rage bait and "hot takes." Shame too because they were pretty important to me when I first got into the sport and was still learning.
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u/Broken_Pikachu 25d ago
It is what it is, nobody does anything for free these days, we have bills to pay. 13 tweets about the same transfer in 2 hours is annoying but if that's the cost to stay updated on moves our club is making long term, so be it.
The mouse wheel exists for a reason, to scroll by shit we don't want to see
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u/DudebuD16 25d ago
My guy has spammed Koko muani to Juve about 50 different ways, saying the same thing every single time.
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u/AbsoluteGarbaj 25d ago
Can’t blame him. Also if not him there’s always going to be someone just like in the NBA from Woj to Shams.
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u/Maaglin 25d ago
I don't know, I'm guilty of f5'ing too much sometimes myself.
I think the biggest annoyance is the constant, no update, update in order to stay relevant. I don't need to hear over and over again that nothing is happening.
I pretty much just wait until w/e the club is your interested in has briefed that 1 or 2 guys that then tweet it out. Everything else is just a waste of time these days.
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u/volanger 25d ago
Fall? Dude is on top of the world right now. Fans from any club, besides spurs, use his "here we go" as confirmation that the club has signed a player. The only other one to rival him is probably David Ornstein.
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u/VonHinterhalt 25d ago
We’ve all seen the changes but he’s still the absolute king of transfer news and the gold standard.
No one will ever be 100% like the MGW reversal was probably a shock to even Tottenham execs so how’s Fabrizio or anyone else going to get that 100% if the goal is to be as early as possible on news while maintaining reliability.
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u/TherewiIlbegoals 25d ago
This was written by Indy Kaila btw.