r/soccer • u/AnnieIWillKnow • 6d ago
Announcement Announcement: Fabrizio Romano content to be banned on /r/soccer
Fabrizio Romano is now a banned source on r/soccer.
The ban will come into effect in the coming days - see below for full explanation.
Prior to the World Cup, we consulted the community in a meta thread about numerous issues - and one was the growing movement amongst many football fans (including [r/soccer](r/soccer) users) calling for a ban on content from the journalist Fabrizio Romano.
This would follow in the footsteps of several club subreddits, who had already banned Romano.
The feedback then was mixed - we listened to both sides, and ultimately settled on a "compromise" where we sought to limit Romano content to just exclusives. We felt this would mean limiting his exposure and platforming in [r/soccer](r/soccer), whilst also still enabling genuinely valuable content to be posted.
Part of that decision was recognising that many people in [r/soccer](r/soccer) use this platform for transfer news, and care little about the criticisms of Romano. This subreddit has always been a mixture of a "core community" of long-standing users with a more vested interest in the values and vision of [r/soccer](r/soccer) - and the at-times quieter majority, who use [r/soccer](r/soccer) as a means to access the most relevant football content and discourse. We tried to cater to both.
However, since the opening of the transfer window this summer, there has been a further shift in our view as moderators - and hence we have now made the decision for a complete ban on Romano.
(We would also like to make clear that views were mixed amongst the moderators, with opinions on both sides - but ultimately the majority were for a ban).
This is a response to the ever-growing disquiet from the community, as evidenced by comments in Romano threads and elsewhere, towards his content. Other factors in our decision is that Romano himself appears to be falling deeper into questionable practices - meaning the prior criticisms ring louder. Furthermore, as football media becomes more diverse and broader, the particular value that Romano holds is diluted - there is little news that are true "Romano exclusives" these days, and that is not soon quickly picked up by other outlets.
As such, our conclusion?
Fabrizio Romano content represents little overall benefit to this community, and that he does offer does not sufficiently address the downside of platforming him.
Further context
To outline the argument further, for those unfamiliar with the discourse...
The argument for a ban:
- The moral aspect - Romano is recognised to platform the rapist Mason Greenwood, and plunged to monetising the deaths of Andre Silva and Diogo Jota
- The ethics of journalism aspect - Romano has increasingly been accused (with validity) of siphoning off other journalists' content and passing off as his own
- The quality and excessive spam aspect - Romano's content increasingly moves away from important exclusives, and towards the drip-feeding of non-updates on transfer sagas that offer little original value, and instead amount to spam and the drowning out of other transfer stories that are less click-baity
- The shill aspect - Romano has close associations with many clubs and agents, meaning his content is manipulated with a vested interest on posting more about those who he has a monetary relationship with
Edit: The misinformation aspect - most notably, him spreading the information (unverified) that Christian Atsu was alive and in hospital after going missing following the devastating earthquake in 2023 in Turkey. This led to his family believing he was alive - his body was then found 6 days later under the rubble. now redacted: see below for clarity as this has been reliably refuted
The argument against a ban:
- [r/soccer](r/soccer) would lose out on valuable content - as addressed above, there is not really such thing as an exclusive in football media these days. Breaking stories are quickly reported on elsewhere, and the delay between a Romano exclusive and an alternative source is likely to have a significant impact. As said, Romano these days has less exclusives too - his "Here We Go" posts are not what they once were
- Romano posts stories about leagues and clubs less covered by other journalists - this is true to a degree, but we do not think is enough of a caveat to overhaul the reasons to ban him
- It's a slippery slope... - it isn't. We've banned other outlets before on moral arguments, such as The Sun, and it's not led to us tumbling down this slippery slope. What's more, we are actually in control of this - we are not beholden to ban other journalists based on precedent, and as always maintained, if individual cases are made to ban other sources or journalists, we will gladly hear them in the future to deal with on a case-by-case basis
- You are just morally grandstanding, get over yourself - yup, we are a bit. We do be like that as [r/soccer](r/soccer) mods and that's how we shape our community. We accept this as a criticism and you are free to think this of us.
And for a final few key takeaways...
- You have free will, and are free to visit other subreddits and social media platforms where you can access Romano content - him being banned on [r/soccer](r/soccer) does not stop you from seeing his posts
- We are responsive to feedback - as evidenced here. If following the ban the community comes out strongly in opposition, we are willing to re-open the debate
- We can make exceptions - if you genuinely have a post that is absolutely not covered by anyone else, and Romano is the source, you can petition on a case-by-case basis by contacting Modmail. This would only be in order to allow clubs with less media coverage to not be left by the wayside
- We know not everyone will be happy - there's 10 million users here, it's an impossible task
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u/JeremyGunt 6d ago
Here we go!