Fake quotes about Mesut Ozil go viral, but has anyone bothered to verify them?

Mesut Ozil: The latest footballer to suffer at the hands of the media

All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest – Paul Simon

The English media has long held a disdain for truth, and so it is proved in the case of Mesut Ozil and Florentino Perez’s quotes about the ex-Real Madrid star.

All major publications and sites today carry these quotes from Florentino Perez, where he claims Mesut Ozil had had his head turned by women and partying:

“Ozil was not a good professional. He was obsessed with women. He would go out at night with his mistresses and without sleep for hours and hours.”

Shocking! Highly successful, 24-year-old mega-rich footballer enjoying his success by partying with members of the opposite sex.

What exactly is the problem here then? Is Mesut Ozil the most unprofessional footballer in the world, or is it simply a case of a jilted club president trying to cover up his mistake of selling his best player for peanuts?

Neither. The problem is the quotes themselves, in that they are fake. Not real. Untrue.

Florentino Perez never said those words, but then fiction is more powerful, and sometimes more engrossing, than truth.

The quotes above are from an article on abc.es, a Spanish website. In the article, the author takes exception with Mesut Ozil’s religion, his choices and his so-called unprofessionalism. Although Florentino Perez is mentioned in the piece, nowhere is he quoted as saying the above-mentioned things.

It seems, then, this is another example of shoddy journalism. The author of the article is the one making all these statements about Mesut Ozil, statements which are conjecture at best and poor journalism at worst. Clearly the author, Tomas Gonzalez-Martin, has an agenda against Ozil, and has penned down an explosive, bile-filled article solely for the purposes of maligning the German playmaker.

The statements, which were then mistaken for Florentino Perez’s quotes, were then picked up leading English websites like the Daily Mail and have since spread like wildfire.

Not a single website bothered to verify the authenticity of the quotes, and why would they?

Fiction is more interesting than truth, and it also grabs more eyeballs and clicks.

Welcome to the world of social media, where fiction rules the roost and the truth gets demoted to the corner.

It is often said that the media will big up and bring down a player in equal measure, and that they will only back a player till it serves their purpose. In the case of Mesut Ozil, his signing for Arsenal brought in a lot of users to all leading websites.

And now that the Ozil bubble has burst, they needed something new to grab people’s attention. And there is nothing more attention-seeking than spreading lies about the biggest signing in English football in recent times.

So the next time you read an article on one of the so-called big football sites, remember that you are only reading what they want you to read. And that more often than not, you need to read between the lines to understand what is really going on. Otherwise you will end up believing something that has its basis in falsehood and fantasy.

It will be interesting to see if Mesut Ozil and his agents decide to take action against the wrong-doers. Such quotes could severely damage his reputation, and no doubt Ozil will be itching to set the record straight regarding his professional behaviour.