The sensible takeaway is that a public denial from the player’s camp should end the discussion, because there is no point pretending a rumour is solid once the people closest to him have said otherwise. But football discourse never stops there, does it, it just keeps spinning into memes and accusations and then suddenly everyone is an expert on elections, secret meetings, and who said what to whom, which is exactly how this kind of nonsense grows legs and turns into a weeklong circus