I thought I had honestly seen it all with the depths that BBC Sport had plunged to, with their coverage of Newcastle United.
Last season we saw a never ending campaign from them to create unrest, publishing article after article pushing for players to leave Newcastle United, not just Alexander Isak.
This has continued into this current season, with Sandro Tonali, Tino Livramento, Anthony Gordon all cynically used by BBC Sport to get clicks, get attention, justify their existence…
Much of this centres around their woeful cynical money making exercise (visitors from abroad getting served with adverts when visiting BBC Sport) of ‘transfer gossip’, the most visited section of BBC Sport.
The trouble is, so many people still seeing BBC Sport as the most reliable media when it comes to Newcastle United (and other clubs), so if BBC Sport are reporting it then it must be true…
The reality of course is that BBC Sport are just happy now to do absolutely anything to try and get visitors to their site and justify their existence AND make money.
So many of the ‘sources’ they are happy to quote, simply laughable, the online equivalent of the bloke down the pub told me…many of these sites simply making up transfer ‘story’ after transfer ‘story’, complete invention.
BBC Sport also using overseas ‘sources’, frequently with a total disregard as to any truth whatsoever, or the context where something is written.
Which brings me to this morning…
BBC Sport putting this up on X/Twitter – Wednesday 18 February 2026
‘Woltemade is reportedly unhappy at Newcastle and would welcome a move back to Stuttgart or Bayern Munich.’
Then when clicking their X/Twitter link it takes you to this…
BBC Sport media gossip page – Wednesday 18 February 2026:
‘Germany striker Nick Woltemade is unhappy at Newcastle and the 24-year-old would welcome a move back to Stuttgart or Bayern Munich. (Bild – in German)’
With the way the media works these days, I am now seeing mentions all over the place online already this morning, other media and individuals blindly repeating this along these lines, ‘BBC Sport are reporting that Nick Woltemade is unhappy at Newcastle United and wants a move back to Germany.’
So this is now a ‘news story’ thanks to BBC Sport, now reported as ‘fact’ that Nick Woltemade wants to leave Newcastle United and return to the Bundesliga.
There is only one small thing wrong though, one small inconvenient fact.
It is total nonsense.
The source BBC Sport are using for their Nick Woltemade is Bild.
This is a popular tabloid/site in Germany that isn’t the greatest when it comes to reliability, a bit like many of the English tabloids, it likes to go for the sensational attention grabbing things, especially with sport and particularly football, transfer nonsense of course figures highly.
However, in this case, what BBC Sport are pushing, isn’t even a transfer story from Bild.
Bild also carries a lot of quirky stuff, columnists, fan viewpoints, opinion pieces and so on.
The BBC Sport embarrassment has flowed from them picking up their ‘news story’ from this Sport Bild piece:
“My Bayern” is the name of the column by SPORT BILD reporter legend Raimund Hinko, which deals with the German record champions. Hinko has been covering FC Bayern for decades
So Hinko is fan of Bayern Munich who has written about them for ages and often does ‘amusing’ column pieces.
His latest jokey column is a series of spoof letters written to four different Bayern Munich players.
Dear Luis Diaz,
Dear Harry Kane,
Dear Leon Goretzka,
Dear Manuel Neuer,
The BBC Sport ‘Nick Woltemade unhappiness news story’ has been picked up in his Harry Kane one…
‘Dear Harry Kane;
You used to be a goalscorer. That’s not meant as a criticism. On the contrary. You still convert penalties with such certainty, as if they were AI-controlled or by the football gods themselves. And the more often goalkeepers who guess the right corner dive towards the ball, the greater the risk of breaking their fingers, so powerful are the shots. So powerful, in fact, that in Bremen you even scored from outside the penalty area – without any help from the stormy North Sea. Again, with millimeter precision, through a tiny eye of a needle that only you can see
You’re the first striker to become a constant threat from deeper and deeper. The first playmaker with long-range shooting in football history. First eleven, then sixteen meters. Soon twenty. Eventually thirty. Finally, from the halfway line. You can’t possibly play football that long at 32. For that ridiculous €100 million transfer fee, you were a steal in 2023. You’ll be the first football grandpa, hopefully at Bayern Munich, to play on the same team as his grandchildren, pardon me, sons. As a libero or in goal, sorry Manuel Neuer, sorry Jonas Urbig.
And who do you have to thank for that? Bayern Munich, the Bundesliga. You never would have developed like this in the hectic Premier League . Look at Nick Woltemade, who’s been unhappy at Newcastle for ages and would rather go back to Stuttgart or maybe even Bayern Munich sooner rather than later . Nick would make a good successor for you.’
BBC Sport
As I said earlier, this is NOT a news story from Bild. They aren’t even making up a Nick Woltemade transfer piece.
Instead, it is an ‘amusing’ column by a Bayern fan/writer that in one very small part of it has a throwaway line about the Newcastle United striker. Making the kind of lazy, not intended to be taken seriously, fantasy line about Big Nick wanting to come back to Germany. Bayern Munich/German media pride hurt ever since Nick Woltemade signed for Newcastle and not Bayern, the same as the never ending nonsense we have heard from Italian media since the day Sandro Tonali left Serie A for Tyneside, upset that he walked away. So Italian journalists writing made up stuff ever since for their audience, how Sandro is desperate to return.
Speaking of desperate…
At a time when the media has never been in a more desperate state, BBC Sport should be leading the way in fighting back against all the online nonsense, where truth isn’t vaguely important. Instead, BBC Sport are the ones driving the truth bus off a cliff!