Where Did the Recent Thierry Henry to MLS Rumours Come From? Nowhere, That’s Where.

Have you heard the story linking Thierry Henry with a move to Major League Soccer and the New York Red Bulls? I know it’s been around for a while now, ever since the Designated Player/Beckham Rule came into effect, but for some reason it kicked up again this past weekend.

All of a sudden the rumour is that Henry will finish the season at Barcelona, play for France at World Cup 2010 (although Ireland might have something to say about that) and then join New York Red Bulls halfway through the MLS 2010 season.

Which would be great news for MLS, as Henry is exactly the sort of DP the league could use to get the attention of Eurosnobs. He could be described as the David Beckham for people who actually like football instead of celebrity. Red Bulls fans are understandably excited to be linked with such a player, and the Red Bulls organization itself would struggle to think up a better way to celebrate its first season in the new soccer specific Red Bull Arena.

Only problem is that this latest rumour seems to have appeared out of nowhere, with a lot of media outlets citing other media outlets. Following the trail back as far as possible reveals one particular media outlet with no source other than their own certainty.

Let’s work our way backwards. Some reasonably mainstream websites have carried the story in the past few days. ESPNStar identified only “reports” as their source. Miami Soccer Examiner referred to “several sources”, but specifically mentioned the transfer rumour-tastic Tribal Football (who cite no one, ever) and the Barcelona based paper Sport.es, who in turn cite “French and English press”. And round and round we go.

Luckily Goal.com, IMScouting and Big Appple Soccer all refer to English tabloid the Daily Mail, and a quick Google News search for Thierry Henry MLS sorted by date, suggests the Daily Mail is indeed at the root of this most recent “TH14 to MLS” rumour.

So I thought I’d take a quick look at said Daily Mail story to read the quote from Titi, his agent, Barcelona, NYRB, Don Garber or maybe even a mysterious “unnamed source”.

What I found was a tone of absolute certainty that this was happening…

Thierry Henry is set to disappoint long-time admirers Manchester City by following David Beckham to America after the World Cup.

Henry fancies a new challenge to end his illustrious career and MLS side New York Red Bulls are strongly tipped to be his destination, with the 32-year-old Barcelona star excited at the prospect of living in another of the world’s great cities.

… but absolutely nothing to back it up.

The closest thing to a quote in the Daily Mail story is the caption used under this image:

A quick glance and you’d think “It’s a wonderful town” was straight from Titi’s mouth. It’s not. Maybe if the Daily Mail had searched back almost exactly two years they could have found this exact quote from Thierry Henry, published October 2007: “For me, New York is the best city in the world.” But they didn’t. Instead it seems a Daily Mail sub-editor typed what he or she thought of NYC and hoped it would be enough to convince.

It’s true that Henry has long been linked with a move to New York, so in some ways the Daily Mail could claim to be just repeating an old rumour, and that’s the basis of the story. Soccer by Ives dismisses the Mail’s story as nothing more than a rehash for example.

The small but important difference I see is that the Mail are adding a degree of certainty by publishing the words “Thierry Henry is set to” and adding a timeline by publishing reasonably specific dates like “after the World Cup”. Although, interestingly, that second part leaves room for wiggle, since the summer of 2015 is technically just as much “after the World Cup” as the summer of 2010 that’s implied here.

So maybe the Mail are just being clever and rehashing a story in a sneaky way that gives it the appearance of a specific timeline that’s then re-reported by other media. Or maybe they did have some basis to publish this, but didn’t want the Barcelona janitor who overheard the negotiations to lose his job. Or maybe I’m just over-analyzing the whole thing. What I do know is that as a US based football fan, I’d love to see Thierry Henry come to Major League Soccer next season (or any season). But now a small part of me doesn’t want him to, just to prove the Daily Mail wrong.

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Category: MLS