One of the big problems about silly season when it comes to Rangers and indeed any club is separating the absolute fact from fiction. Naturally, there are going to be many, many stories doing the Rangers rounds right now that may actually be based on a semblance of truth. However, there will be many, many more that are absolute fabricated fantasy. Ibrox Noise had significant doubts over the story regarding Hammarby’s Skoglund. This was a story broken exclusively by Rangers News and followed up by TeamTalk’s Fraser Fletcher. The latter source had the alarm bells ringing in the first place, given that we know his information is at best unreliable and at worst, absolute fiction. Which causes Rangers ‘exclusive’ signing story to be false.
The Story Falls Apart
Rangers News, we do know, can be clickbait as well. However, their exclusive here has been disproven entirely by Hammarby’s sporting director, who has confirmed there are no talks whatsoever with the right back in question.
Put simply, the story is absolutely and utterly nonsense.
Mikael Hjelmberg said:
“Hampus is an important part of the team.
“We have a very good squad, and my goal is to try to keep that squad as intact as possible.
“I have no idea how serious Rangers’ interest in him is because I haven’t heard a sound from them.
“The transfer window hasn’t opened, but of course, I have a fairly close dialogue with Hampus’ agent.
“But there haven’t been any concrete talks between us and any clubs yet.
“Previously, there had been concrete interest, but not this year.”
Issues
This is an issue that Rangers fans will have to deal with from various sources. We are well aware of the history of Rangers News. They are an aggregating, monetising site. They were once edited by a Celtic fan. We know this for a fact because one of our ex writers once moved from ourselves to Rangers News.
We had no previous issue with Rangers News and, in all fairness, in present day, we still do not. However, they are a monetising site.
In terms of exclusive stories, we have not as yet discovered any stories that they have had which were genuinely, truly original and factual. This one, based in Sweden, appears to be yet another.
Hammarby’s sporting director has confirmed there are no talks whatsoever from Rangers with their right back. In fact, there has been no approach whatsoever. This means that the notion of Rangers News’ exclusive in the first place, then TeamTalk’s follow up claiming the talks are advanced, is utter complete fiction. Rangers are not interested in this lad at all.
How These Stories Spread
This is not to say, of course, that Rangers News have deliberately fabricated the story from scratch. They may well have been fed false information.
However, Fraser Fletcher of TeamTalk is only too happy to take stories like this and simply expand on them. He makes up complete nonsense in order to get clicks and drive traffic.
This is what Rangers fans have to deal with.
Ibrox Noise does not claim to have a monopoly over the truth. We will not get everything right ourselves. We do not claim for one second that we are the bastions of integrity and that we will always get absolute facts from complete ironclad sources.
Of course we will not.
We will get things wrong now and then.
However, we do not claim big stories like this in the way that they have, as absolute exclusives. The mass media then take them on, only for the target club to confirm that this was complete fiction and there is no truth behind the story.
The Difference With Ibrox Noise
As we say, we will not intentionally personally dig at another Rangers source.
We are also aware that Rangers News are not run by Rangers fans at all, which is a big blot against them. TeamTalk and Fraser Fletcher in question are also the same deal. He is not a Rangers person. He is simply an individual who has some kind of slim BBC reporting background and reports news that he gains, whether or not it is true at all.
Ibrox Noise, on the other hand, is run by Rangers fans. We are a Rangers community. Ibrox Noise are Rangers through and through. We have Rangers men and women on the staff.
We have a WhatsApp group which is filled with Rangers fans and a Facebook page which is filled with shock horror Rangers fans.
This does not mean we will get everything right as well.
We will do our very best to get the accurate information that we can, but we will get things wrong too.
Intentions Matter
Our intentions are always with the best interests of the club. We cannot say the same about other sites.
Rangers News and indeed Ibrox News are much the same. They are essentially monetising sites that are designed to gain traffic off Rangers’ name.
That is fair enough. However, Rangers fans unfortunately get this information and believe it is coming from Rangers fans who have ITK sources.
Alas, that is not the case. This right back from Hammarby proves the story was complete and total fiction. It got taken up by the wider press in Scotland on the basis of a complete and total untruth.
As we say, we will not accuse Rangers News of lying. However, we will say that the story is fiction, whether they got it in good faith or not.
Rangers ‘exclusive’ signing story false. And that is that.