The N/A Analysis and the Price of Transfer Rumours

A young reporter sent me a draft transfer-window analysis. In the boxes for tactics, finance, match results and dressing room, the system only displayed three letters: N/A. He asked whether he should fill them with rumours spreading across the internet. I said no. The transfer window is a time when the market is flooded with fake stories and agent-driven noise. An analysis that honestly says “insufficient data” is worth more than a long piece that fabricates confidence. The old 2026 note is still in my drawer – I never delete my history of mistakes. In 2026, while I was a senior reporter in Rome, a social media account claimed Gonzalo Higuaín was demanding 7 million euros per season to leave Juventus. In just five hours, the story reached 2.1 million views. I called the player’s representative; he denied it but did not want to go public. I spent six hours verifying the contract and release clauses with Lega Serie A. My correction was read by only 30,000 people, while the fake post kept spreading. From that moment, I built one professional rule: do not confirm anything without two independent sources. An empty file is better than a rushed conclusion. Before talking about transfers, talk about time – a wrong clock can kill a deal. That phrase comes from the 2026 World Cup in Russia. Ivan Perišić’s representative called me during the tournament. Inter Milan wanted to trigger a 50-million-euro release clause, but Perišić’s contract had a critical deadline on July 15. Without extending the clause to July 31, the deal would collapse because of a few missed days. In the end, the Milan club paid 45 million euros fixed plus 5 million in bonuses. What made the deal work was not form or tactics, but a time stamp checked at the right moment. I have seen countless negotiations fail because someone asked about deadlines too late. A club waits one week to lower the price, a player delays signing for an offer that never arrives, an agent holds a message too long to create drama. Every time, the clock on the wall keeps running without mercy. In 2026, when COVID-19 closed the stadiums, a Brescia staff member called me: “Please help us.” The club owed three months of wages; players did not know how to cope. I organised a nine-hour online meeting with the board, the captain and the Italian Players’ Association. I saw a player cry in the meeting room because of three months of unpaid salary – football is not only tactics. The agreement to pay wages in four instalments saved the club from bankruptcy. These stories taught me that the way a writer handles missing data reflects the ethics of the whole media system. Without original information, we can fill the page with speculation to chase views; or we can use the N/A sign as a signal that the transfer has not been verified. The paradox is that empty analyses are often criticised as “useless”, while detailed pieces built on fake facts are considered insightful. The biggest misunderstanding in the modern market is confusing article length with evidence quality. A data-analysis system is like a doctor: if the tests have not returned, prescribing treatment is a medical error. In football, data models are often hypnotised by young talent, but they forget dressing-room chemistry. A player may run so many kilometres and shoot so many times; but if he cries over unpaid wages, if teammates do not trust one another, every number becomes an illusion. Those emotions do not appear in spreadsheets; they appear only when a writer is willing to listen. Transfers are not a game of finding the cheapest star. Transfers are about finding the right moment, the right contract structure and the right people in the meeting room. A deal can look perfect on paper but die at the table because goals clash. The agent wants a high fee; the club wants low risk; the player simply wants to play. A reporter must record all three desires instead of jumping to the transfer fee. In the analysis my young colleague received, I especially liked the system note: “Tactical and financial aspects cannot be analysed because the input data is empty.” That note is not meaningless. It reminds the newsroom that they have no title, no source, no publication date, and therefore should not publish any conclusion. That is a form of intelligence many newsrooms lack. But the story does not end with respecting data. In football media, a search engine can see which article attracts attention, but it cannot feel the sleepless nights of a player. Algorithms measure engagement; they cannot measure the pain of a family forced to leave a city after a collapsed contract. At 69, I do not write to prove I have seen everything. I write so old notes and numbers are treated honestly. My advice to the young reporter is short: let N/A exist a little longer. Do not turn it into fake analysis. If a transfer file is incomplete, say clearly what must be checked: contract deadlines, release clauses, real wages rather than announced wages, and the shadow of an agent behind the rumour. When the pieces of evidence can stand on their own, the article will grow its own bones. Vietnamese football today needs that culture as well. The question is not why this window has fewer blockbuster deals, but whether we have enough patience to wait for a story that says “we do not have enough data” in a noisy market. If not, each summer will pass with hundreds of transfers that never existed, and the only thing being moved will be the readers’ trust.