Masal Bugduv: a prodigy that never was

Towards the end of 2008, as the January transfer window approached, a Moldovan teenager by the name of Masal Bugduv was apparently one of the hottest prospects in the game. The 16-year-old was, according to several reports, attracting the eyes of scouts at many of Europe's major clubs.

The name had been popping up in football discourse for a few months at this stage. He was, by all accounts, a hugely talented prospect. His coaches in his native Moldova couldn't speak highly enough of him. Reports of his performances on the field pointed to a generational talent with the potential to dominate European football for years to come. It was only a matter of time before one of Europe’s giants swooped in to make the youngster an offer he simply couldn't turn down.

There was only one very small issue with the hype surrounding the teenager. The young Moldovan was merely a figment of a Mayo journalist's imagination.

During the mid-noughties, the football transfer market was developing into the carnival of gossip and general silliness it continues to be known for today. Any given day would provide a new rumour that was in all likelihood built on idle chatter at best and, at worst, subterfuge. Ballinrobe man Declan Varley had become both intrigued and frustrated by the colourful tapestry of rumours that were churned out in a bid to whet the appetite of fans as the club game recessed for the summer months.

It led Varley, who is currently editor at the Galway Advertiser as well as being a celebrated author, to an idea - he was going to devise a social experiment that would explore just how far a rumour could travel. Though the true power of the internet had not yet been realised, there were already subtle signs to suggest misinformation could be propagated fair and wide. He began by coming up with the name Masal Bugduv. It was based on M'asal Beag Dubh, which translates as My Little Black Donkey, a short story by renowned Galway author and journalist Pádraic Ó Conaire.

As an avid Arsenal fan, it was only natural that he would attempt to connect his club with the apocryphal footballer. He began by posting the rumour online on football fan blogs. But the football universe was soon eating the hoax up.

Football fans were, as is their wont, consumed by the idea of Europe's next young talent arriving at their club. More worrying though was the manner in which sports media, too, took the bait hook, line and sinker.

As always, the devil was in the detail. So, Varley carefully manufactured a fake backstory, including bogus quotes from people supposedly close to the teenager and reports of his exemplary performances on the field. These details were then posted online, drop by drop, allowing the rumour mill to do most of the heavy lifting.

The prodigy, fans were told, had made his debut for Moldovan side Olimpia Balti as a 15-year-old and had already scored a hat-trick in a cup game. His rise was so rapid that he had already made his senior international debut during his country's 2-2 draw with Armenia in May 2008. There were also reports of his participation in his country’s World Cup qualifier with Luxembourg.

The fabrication’s tentacles continued to grow and the Bugduvt's name soon began appearing in mainstream media.

Reputable outlets such as The Times and The Guardian began reporting about the manner in which clubs were advancing on the teenager in the hope of securing his signature. The Times ranked him as one of the world's best 50 young footballers. It didn't take long until respected "sources" were endorsing the talent. His fictional agent was also seen leaving Arsenal's training ground, telling reporters: "I have no doubt that he has the ability of Fabregas and Nasri, but he needs a stage to perform and prove this."

Varley sat back and watched the drama unfold. He had cast the net, the fish did the rest of the work.

A short while later, with no move for Bugduv coming and no sight of the teenage sensation in London, Munich, Milan or Madrid, some investigative journalists finally began to do some digging of their own and unearthed the hoax.

Though Varley initially kept his silence, he eventually came forward to unveil the reasoning behind such a cunning scheme. In an interview with the New York Times, he explained how he came up with the ruse, drawing a correlation between Ó Conaire's donkey and the transfer market. The protagonist in Ó Connaire's short story "knows his donkey is useless", he said. "But [he] tries to sell it to the highest bidder."

The entire affair served as a cautionary tale for both sports journalists and football fans who consumed football content relating to their respective clubs like it was written on tablets at the summit of Mount Sinai. Journalists at reputable outlets had been exposed for failing to maintain acceptable standards of accuracy - Bugduv’s tale laid bare how speed and the power of an eye-catching headline regularly came at the cost of truth.

But the affair also reminded readers that they have a duty to approach rumour with a sense of healthy scepticism, just as Varley did when encountering unreliable gossip day after day.

“People will believe what they want to believe,” Varley told the New York Times. “And there is a desire to be seen as though you are in the know, not to want to admit you aren’t on top of the game.” Alas, it could be argued that the world of football remains as gullible as ever, despite Bugduv's notorious rise to fame. Football has merely become a by-product of the internet, where anyone can choose what they want to believe and point to multiple supposedly reliable sources to back up their beliefs.

As former Google CEO Eric Schmidt once noted, the internet is "the largest experience in anarchy that we ever had".

Varley merely exposed that fact before the rest of us had caught up with reality.