The Race for Matthijs de Ligt

Introduction

The football summer transfer window is right around the corner, and it is a time that both players and teams must be on their A-Game, in order to score good deals. A great example of which is the current Golden Boy Award holder, Matthijs de Ligt. The Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax captain and central defender is one of the most promising young professionals in the sport. Matthijs de Ligt became an Ajax player in 2016 at the young age of 16. Since then, he has exceeded the fans’ greatest expectations. Now, entering a new season, he is looking for a trade to even larger football teams, namely, Football Club Barcelona and Manchester City Football Club.

Manchester City and Barcelona; these two teams, synonymous with football itself, are two of the biggest contenders in the race for Matthijs de Ligt. The competition has been fierce, and will continue to be, with Barcelona set to make a decision by June 1st and Manchester City showing signs of both disparity and comfort simultaneously. Hartho News’ task is to figure out what biases are present in the articles concerning this case, and to find out the truth: what team De Ligt will really join.

Article 1 — City Watch

City Watch — a major news source for Manchester City FC fans — claims that FC Barcelona are unlikely to rival Manchester City for the Ajax defender, who is priced at a grand £75m. The article states that Barcelona are out of means to sign de Ligt, citing the expensive signing of his club teammate, Frenkie de Jong. However, neither the article, nor Manchester City itself, has any authentic information on the finances of Barcelona. Though, prize money and the sales of unwanted players could increase Barcelona’s finances — if there was a problem to begin with.

The bias starts to become evident in the article when it opposes the main idea with stronger sources. Early on, the article states that “[Matthijs]de Ligt, 19, is wanted by a host of European heavyweights but has been favoured to follow Ajax teammate Frenkie de Jong to Catalonia and sign with Barcelona.” This clearly shows the overall feel of the situation right now, but it still does not provide any concrete facts. Another excerpt from the article includes information from a primary source; the interview of Ajax goalkeeper, Andre Onana. “[Matthijs] de Ligt wants to go with [Frenkie] de Jong to Barcelona. I have spoken to both of them about it.” Since the deciding factor in a player’s transfer to another club is the athlete’s point of view itself, this quote proves the article’s bias, as well as a straightforward decision from De Ligt himself.

The article then trails on to discuss other clubs interested in the Dutch defender, other complications for Manchester City’s case, and possible replacements for de Ligt if they were to miss out on a second young Dutchman. As it may seem, none of these closing remarks help their overall point and initial statement. This would usually indicate bias, however, it could be too early to tell.

Article 2 — Manchester Evening News

In contrast to the previous article published by City Watch, Manchester Evening News (MEN) come out with a bold report with the title, “Man City ‘make Matthijs de Ligt decision’ ahead of summer transfer window.” The first line of the article clearly states that Manchester City will not pursue Matthijs de Ligt come the summer transfer window. Being aimed towards a specific Manchester audience, it is an audacious statement. The article agrees with City Watch, over the fact that Manchester City FC lost out Frenkie de Jong during the last transfer window.

However, there is one major difference — how many Ajax players did Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) fail to sign; 1 or 2? City Watch claims that MCFC have missed out on only Frenkie de Jong. On the flip side, Manchester Evening News firmly states that MCFC have lost interest in Matthijs de Ligt as well. So, who is talking truth, and consequently, which article is filled with bias?

For starters, MEN get help from Spanish football expert, Guillem Balague. On Balague’s YouTube channel, he stated the following on the situation, “Manchester City do not want Matthijs de Ligt. Manchester City feel that Barcelona are at the forefront of the situation and willing to pay the £60m that Ajax want for him. Ajax do not want to do an auction for him, wherever he wants to go, he will go. And de Ligt has not made a decision but is very, very tempted by Barcelona. Bayern Munich and PSG also want him as well. But, at the moment, Barcelona are very confident.” Keeping in mind the source, one could see possible sources of bias in Guillem Balague’s say on the hot topic. First and foremost, Balague is Spanish, and Barcelona is in Spain. However, a closer look at his YouTube channel, you can see that he focuses more on EPL (English Premier League) teams, and so, he likely has greater sources within English teams. If that’s not enough, on a political level, Barcelona and a few other Catalonian regions are in a fight for independence from Spain. However, you cannot deny the fact that this is a secondary source and simply an opinion, though his statement does agree with what City News provided in the form of Andre Onana’s interview. Hence, it’s fair to give Guillem Balague the benefit of the doubt and prove his viewpoint true.

Just like the previous, the MEN article would then trail on to explain other possible transfer options for Manchester City. This is likely a strategy used by the Manchester News sources to please their MCFC fan audience. The raw information in both the articles agree, while the opinions differ. Therefore, we can conclude that the first article (City Watch) proposed biased information, while MEN kept it neutral. From this, the team currently leading the race for Matthijs de Ligt is FC Barcelona.

Article 3 — Barca Blaugranes

Another article analyzed is from the perspective of the second major team in this trade deal, Football Club Barcelona, commonly referred to as FC Barcelona. This article was published on April 17, 2019, by Barca Blaugranes, a publishing company that was made for fans of FC Barcelona. Normally, articles from publishers that are predisposed to a specific team are flooded with bias, but this article has very little of it, if any. The article has quotes from de Ligt, which are taken word-for-word from the interview, which means that no important information is left out. The article explains what de Ligt said in an interview with ESPN; that he only wanted to listen to Barcelona, and that Barcelona is the number one contender in his mind. This statement has been confirmed by many reputable sources like ESPN and TSN, sources that were listed in the article itself, showing that the author is taking information from as wide a spectrum as possible. The article also mentioned that the deal is to be worth about 80 million euros and Barcelona might be forced to sell some players to secure the deal. The same report mentions that de Ligt thinks that he isn’t worth more than his friend, Frenkie de Jong. He wants to focus on his upcoming games rather than speculate about his future. The author believes that de Ligt most likely will go to Barcelona as his friend Frenkie de Jong is already playing with Barcelona. However, he is not the only person to consider the relationship factor. Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt have both played for Ajax together and have been teammates for a quite a while. Although this deal is about de Ligt, he says it is not up to him, but the club (AFC Ajax) to choose what offer will be the best for him.

Matthijs de Ligt has been very interested in other teams as well such as Bayern Munich because he admires the club a lot. But his cost is estimated to be upwards of 75 million euros, an amount which is hard for Bayern to match. The article concluded with a statement that said all Bayern fans should forget about this deal happening because of how close Barcelona are to receiving de Ligt’s signature. It is important to note how this article does not include any specifics about Manchester City’s situation. This could back the thought that MCFC have pulled out of negotiations, or Barcelona simply do not believe that they are competitors for the Dutchman.

Article 4 — SportEnglish

SportEnglish, a news source for soccer teams all across Europe, claims that Football Club Barcelona is offering Matthijs de Ligt a lucrative contract until 2024. Titled “Barcelona to offer Ajax’s de Ligt a contract until 2024”, this article shows some biases in its writing.

SportEnglish is, just like the previous article writer, a primarily Barcelona FC-focused news source. This means that there will always be biases present in it, regardless of who is writing. This is more or less confirmed by two things: the solidity of the information presented, and the lack of perspective.

The article is supposedly about how Barcelona have ‘secured a deal with de Ligt’ for 5 years, but there is no true information reflected in the article, and there are inconsistencies in the data. The headline of the article says that Barcelona is “to offer De Ligt a contract”, but in the article, the author states that “The general lines of the terms are more or less defined.” This shows that this information cannot be reliable; the headline leads the reader to think that talks between Barcelona and de Ligt are not done and dusted, because the author uses the word to, which sends the message that Barcelona haven’t made an offer yet. However, this contradicts the point in the article, that talks between the team and player have been “more or less defined”. The information presented is also biased, because rather than presenting different perspectives on the topic, there is simply one team that shows information.

The main person that an article targets is the reader, whose goal is to get the most amount of information they possibly can. This benefits everyone, because the reader stays on the page longer, which benefits the publisher of the article. As a result, when useful information is omitted from an article, bias can be the only possible reason. In this case, the article is biased towards FC Barcelona, because only information about that team is presented. Any article following a case of anything should include topics from other perspectives, not just the interests of the author. This is to make sure that the reader can craft their opinions from as wide a source as they can, and if that article of information is misleading, or proposes an opinion where there shouldn’t be, then that should be regarded as information that cannot be trusted, which the article from SportEnglish is.

Article 5- Ronaldo.com: Based on an ESPN Interview

ESPN captured de Ligt’s opinion best in an interview with Matthijs de Ligt, where they were able to reveal how the 19 year old soccer phenom feels about the abundant trade rumours circulating about his future. Although ESPN is known to be biased towards certain sports teams, Andrew Smyth of Ronaldo.com has done an exceptional job making the ESPN interview the focus of his article while keeping his article unbiased; writing Matthijs de Ligt ‘bored’ of transfer rumours. Smyth has done so by solely including quotes from de Ligt’s interview, and backing it up with external facts; making this article one of the few unbiased articles regarding Matthijs de Ligt’s future.

This article courtesy of Ronaldo.com and it is one of the few articles that are non-controversial regarding de Ligt. The reason being that it only covers de Ligt’s point of view, and the article is solely based on de Ligt’s choice of words. When Matthijs de Ligt was asked about the trade rumours, he said “Am I annoyed by the rumours? No. Bored? A little bit.” This quote is significant in the article because it reveals a lot about the character of the 19 year old soccer superstar. From this quote, it can be deduced that de Ligt is very focused on the success of his current team (AFC Ajax), and will consider transfer options later. This is expected as AFC Ajax is currently in the Champions League semi-finals, a competition hosted by the Union of European Football Associations, and he must keep his focus on the game. In addition, it helps fans understand how he really feels about the constant trade rumours; he is getting tired of hearing them, to the point of boredom. In a follow up interview to the one recorded by ESPN, de Ligt also mentioned that he ‘doesn’t care about the countless articles being written about where he should go’. Matthijs de Ligt even goes on to say that “it doesn’t matter at all”.

This article is important in our search for the truth, because it shows the significance of AFC Ajax to Matthijs de Ligt, and also brings the idea that de Ligt may not leave Ajax to the table. In the ESPN interview that Ronaldo.com used, de Ligt talked about his relationship with Ajax, “This place means a lot to me. I grew up here. I came here when I was nine years old.” From this quote, it can be inferred that de Ligt is very attached to AFC Ajax, and the team is very important to him. This could also be a reason why de Ligt is ‘bored,’ and doesn’t care about trade rumours right now. Knowing that he will be transferred in the coming future, he wants to give his all to his boyhood team.

Conclusion

In this heated debate over which European team will get de Ligt, the amount of bias in the media is very small. However, the little that is present is very evident, by exploring the different viewpoints of other articles. The authors of the articles that Hartho News have analyzed have remained neutral in their respective news stories concerning de Ligt. However, truth on a specific topic can only be found by looking at the similarities between different sources. Consequently, vague ideas mentioned in some articles that do not match with similar information are likely biased.

Using this knowledge, it is no mystery that the Manchester sources and Barcelona sources contrasted greatly. At Hartho News, 5 articles have been put through the testing: 2 for the teams of Manchester and Barcelona, and 1 for the opinion of Matthijs de Ligt himself. Out of these, it is for certain that the Barca Blaugranes and Ronaldo.com (ESPN) sources are not biased, as they contain quotes from the man in doubt — a primary source. The opinions stated in the City News article on de Ligt does not agree with any other source, and it runs against the flow of the debate, therefore, that article cannot be taken into consideration. The author of the report published by SportEnglish showed signs of bias, because of his use of differing opinions, in the headline and the content of the article. Finally, Manchester Evening News uses a very reliable source of information, and therefore, can be trusted with its information. Coming back to the analysis of the articles as a whole, there is not much unbiased data to look at.

Pushing aside all the biased articles, there is only 1 source per perspective remaining. The Barcelona (Barca Blaugranes) and Manchester City (Manchester Evening News) sources agree with each others’ points; they both present facts that outlay a simple outcome for Matthijs de Ligt in favour of FC Barcelona. In addition, the Ronaldo.com article does not include any solid information towards the debate, only information about Ajax. If de Ligt has stated his interest in Barcelona, the interview may have come at a time of disinterest in Matthijs. Looking at the facts, Hartho News has uncovered the truth behind the tale; the fate of de Ligt lies within Futbol Club Barcelona.

Bibliography

Bray, Joe. “Manchester City ‘Make De Ligt Transfer Decision’ and More Rumours.” Men, 7 Apr. 2019, www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/man-city-transfers-de-ligt-16092873.

City Watch. “Barcelona Unlikely to Rival Manchester City for £75m-Rated Defensive Ace — Report.” City Watch, 15 Feb. 2019, www.mcfcwatch.com/2019/02/14/barcelona-unlikely-to-rival-manchester-city-for-75m-defensive-ace-report/.

“Matthijs De Ligt ‘Bored’ of Transfer Rumours.” Ronaldo.com, 24 Jan. 2019, ronaldo.com/football-news/matthijs-de-ligt-bored-of-transfer-rumours/.

Gimeno, Francesc J. “Barcelona to Offer Ajax＇s De Ligt a Contract until 2024.” Sport, Sport, 13 Apr. 2019, www.sport-english.com/en/news/barca/barcelona-to-offer-ajaxs-de-ligt-a-contract-until-2024-7405772.

Mazariegos, Luis. “Barcelona ‘Set to Sign’ Ajax Hero Matthijs De Ligt — Report.” Barca Blaugranes, Barca Blaugranes, 17 Apr. 2019, www.barcablaugranes.com/2019/4/17/18412097/barcelona-set-to-sign-ajax-hero-matthijs-de-ligt-report.