The term "fake news" has been trending of late in the political sense in the wake of the presidential election in the United States of America.
Essentially debates have raged about the impact inaccurate or misleading information may or may not have had as voters prepared to choose between eventual president elect Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.
But has fake news filtered into the sports world and specifically football?
Backpage Football co-editor Neil Sherwin argues that it has with the specific example of some of the online and social media coverage following the Chapecoense tragedy.
For example, reports quickly surfaced that Cristiano Ronaldo and Paris Saint Germain football club were intending to donate millions of euros to Chapecoense. Those reports were later proven to be false and Neil feels they were unfair to both Ronaldo and PSG.
He joined us on this week's Team 33 to discuss the issue of fake news and clickbait as it pertains to football coverage online and on social media.
"Realistically you're messing with people's lives with some of the stuff that goes out there," says Neil, explaining that the aforementioned misleading stories have the potential to put unnecessary pressure and "unfair expectations" on professional organisations and athletes.
"We've gone from clickbait which was a bad enough pratice in the sense that it was trying to entice people in to read the news; it's now enticing people in to read fake news. We've gone that little step further with the way things are going."
You can listen to the full interview with Neil on the second part of this week's Team 33 podcast below or on iTunes:
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