Fake News: Zlatan Ibrahimovic quotes about Leo Messi were made up

Zlatan & Leo Messi during their Barcelona days

More fake news...

Fake news has very much become the scourge of the internet over recent times as evidenced by the recent American presidential election.

Whether fake news helped Donal Trump beat Hillary Clinton is a debate historians will likely discuss for many decades.

But, there can be little doubt that social media, with all its positives and negatives, has brought news to the fore that simply isn't true.

Zlatan on Messi

Over the last 48 hours, a brilliant quote went viral from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, regarding Leo Messi.

It was as follows: "If they had given me the Ballon d'Or, I would personally hand it over to Messi the next day."

This was supposedly in response to a question about Zlatan never winning the Ballon d'Or having been in his prime during the great dominance of the individual award by both Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi.

You may well have seen this quote on social media - generally it has gone viral amongst Spanish speaking sources such as Mundo Deportivo - a Catalan paper.

"The Golden Age of Journalism"

An account on Twitter posted the fake quote and for some reason it was picked up by some news media.

This is not the first time a quote has been attributed to Zlatan Ibrahimovic that has turned out to be false.

The Twitter user that invented the Zlatan quote about Messi has since explained, in Spanish, that it was a hoax and pointed out how many Spanish sources released it out as well.

@MDPilar6 on Twitter revealed the hoax and then wrote: "The Golden Age of Journalism" - which pretty much sums it up.

The original quote - which subsequently went viral

Ibrahimovic "si a mi me hubiesen dado este año o cualquier otro año el balón de oro al día siguiente se lo llevó personalmente a Messi"

— SRTA MESSIADICTA ⚽🔥 (@MDPilar6) December 18, 2016

How the Spanish press picked up on the Zlatan/Messi quote

Como dirían por aquí.
"LA EDAD DE ORO DEL PERIODISMO"
Contrastar noticias ya si eso otro día pic.twitter.com/2bIwLyPz5V

— SRTA MESSIADICTA ⚽🔥 (@MDPilar6) December 22, 2016