Masal Bugduv

[Cunny]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/...ova-hoax-player

 

 

Masal Bugduv – the 16-year-old Moldovan prodigy who doesn't exist

 

The bizarre story of how a non-existent Moldovan striker became one of the world's 50 hottest young footballing talents

 

 

If you had to compile a list of the world's 50 hottest young footballing talents, who would be in it? You would probably start with a couple of members of Arsenal's Carling Cup team, that Argentinian striker who was linked with Chelsea in the summer and the youth team prospect who's scored twice in 18 substitute appearances for your local league club. Four down, 46 to go.

 

Pick someone from the Brazil Under-23 team, throw in the reigning Concacaf Young Player of the Year and peruse the German goalscoring charts until you find someone still in his teens. Phone that bloke you know who watches reserve matches and do a Google search for "the new Zidane". Now what?

 

There is, in short, a good chance that you'd get a bit desperate. And so it was that a journalist from The Times included, quite accidentally, a totally fictitious footballer at No30 in their own list of fledgling superstars. He's not on it any more, of course, though the evidence is there if you search, but this is what they wrote:

 

30. Masal Bugduv (Olimpia Balti)

 

Moldova's finest, the 16-year-old attacker has been strongly linked with a move to Arsenal, work permit permitting. And he's been linked with plenty of other top clubs as well

 

The problem was the identity of those who had been doing the linking. Their story started unravelling when the website theoffside.com alerted readers to the list, and a blogger posted a message suggesting that Bugduv didn't exist at all. On his own blog the author, known as Makki, had already detailed, in Russian, his failure to find any evidence of the player on any Moldovan website, including that of his supposed club. Searches in English had found stories apparently written by the Associated Press (although not in a style regular AP readers would recognise) linking the "midfielder" with Arsenal and Zenit St Petersburg and boasting about international appearances that simply never happened.

 

Fredorrarci, a contributor to soccerlens.com, took up the hunt and unravelled a web of blog postings, apparently from different people, that had combined to create a player out of nothing. Most of them had appeared last summer, when Wikipedia's entry on the Moldovan national side had been altered to include a prominent mention of Bugduv. The Wikipedia user who had added it was called Masalbugduv. His true identity, and those of his potential co-conspirators, remains a mystery, as does his motivation.

 

But the Times was not alone in being duped by the story of a young, obscure prodigy. It turns out Bugduv had already been mentioned in dispatches by When Saturday Comes and on goal.com.

 

But there is genuine talent lurking in that part of the world. We asked our Eastern European football expert, Jonathan Wilson, to suggest an up-and-coming player from the region who might have made the Times's list and actually exists. He instantly came up with Danijel Aleksic, a 17-year-old Serb forward playing for unfashionable Vojvodina. You heard it here first.

[goodrobotusses]

Aye, read this in today's Fiver. Quality.

[crisps]

Big organisations getting Merked by the internet is always ace.

 

My favourite was this: http://adammacqueen.blogspot.com/2008/03/h...otball-365.html

 

Gingan Giuly (ludovic's brother) was also ace!

Edited January 15, 2009 by crisps

[cymrococh]

Merked

BAN CRISPS!

[PhilM]

Didier Baptiste anyone?

[ManxRed]

SiGn DaNiJeL AlEkSiC NoW!!

[Ostrich Man]

BAN CRISPS!

you callingh for anyone to be banned after that rick astley thing is a bit rich.

[Crazy Horse]

‘NON-EXISTENT’ CLAIMS WERE MADE TO SCUPPER MY DREAM MOVE SAYS ELUSIVE MOLDOVAN BUGDUV

 

AP- BALTI (Friday)— Top Moldovan hotshot Massi (Masal) Bugduv has said that recent claims that he does not exist are merely a ploy by forces behind his club to prevent him from moving to a Western Europe club before the end of the month. The 16-year-old full Moldovan international was controversially included in the Times Top 50 Young Players this week but was then devastated by a campaign which suggested that he does not even exist! The Times removed him from the listing and replaced him with Arsenal hotshot Jay Simpson.

 

However last night the Moldovan was considering legal action against those who got him removed from the list and he said he knows who is behind it.

He is hopeful that he will be reinstated before the middle of next week. ‘Since the summer time when I was on the verge of moving to Arsenal, my work permits problems were not just a coincidence. they were designed to stop me leaving for a few years, and now sinister forces seem to have tried to embarrass me again.

 

“I was almost exploding my head with the rage when I heard about these newspaper stories.

“I was so proud to be in the Top 50 players at No. 30 but then to have that taken away from me by vicious rumours is heartbreaking.

“I am happy that Jay Simpson got the place but soon I will be at Arsenal too, I hope and i will win back my place.

“Sometimes I wonder if my career will ever see me playing in England or Spain.

“We are seeing the same with Arshavin. People here tend to think that you should stay at one club for life, but I am young and it has always been my dream to play in the west.

“I know who is behind this. They try to embarrass me and my family and my agent, but it will not work,” he said.

 

He said that his legal representatives have already been instructed to contact media outlets who said that he did not even exist.

Bugduv is to feature in a series of TV interviews this weekend as investigation into the “non-existent” claims is ongoing.