Untold Arsenal » Man responsible for Sun Fábregas hoax arrested by police

Anthony Kastrinakis. the man behind the Sun’s famous Fábregas-to-Madrid hoax has been arrested by police.

Kastrinakis’ article which claimed that Fábregas was ready to play for Real Madrid was picked up by Arsenal blogs and national newspapers, making it the most successful football hoax in the history of football journalism.

The Sun had for some time been anxious to reclaim the crown as hoaxers-in-chief after the Mirror took the title with John Cross’ story that claimed Bendtner had told him he, “should start every game and play every minute of every game”. This story not only sounded insane, but was odd on the grounds that Cross cannot speak Danish – the language in which the interview was given.

Kastrinakis’ (who does not speak Spanish) decided to use the same tactics as the Mirror’s, taking an interview given in Spanish by Cesc, in which he said he would never “do a Ronaldo” (full transcript of that bit of the interview in the earlier post today on this web site) and turning it into “I want to play for Madrid”.

The coverage was much bigger, first because Cesc is a bigger name, second because the claim was more outrageous, and third because the bloggers and other papers knew just how big the Bendtner hoax had been – and realised this could be bigger.

Flushed with success, and the toast of Docklands Kastinakis went out on the town with friends, and was arrested at 4am outside Olivers Bar today.

Meanwhile the Mirror held an urgent editorial meeting this lunchtime over its plans to retaliate. It is understood that the rules of the game will stay much the same: a non-British Arsenal star, speaking while on international duty or holiday, in his native tongue.

Playing on the general inability of most English people to speak more than one European language the journalist will then pick out two or three words and then run them with a totally different meaning. The journalist in question has no need to be at the player’s side – the story will be picked up from a local paper written in the player’s language, and two or three words will be picked out.

So, next time round will the papers and the bloggers go for the hoax once more?

The answer is yes, of course, because that is what they do. But at least real Arsenal fans can look at the next story and think, “oh look, another hoax.”

Meanwhile here’s some other snippets. To the correspondent who asked if I was going to write about Michael Jackson, aside from the fact that he is not dead but is living on the dark side of the moon with Elvis, no, sorry I am not. Elsewhere, it does look as if Bishcoff is going – which I am sorry to see – but I do hope he remembers how we got him back on track. And the comment in this blog about the journalist being arrested for being drunk and disorderly is as true as the comments he attributed to Cesc on the subject of Real Mad. Makes you think.

(c) A bunch of lying toads 2009.