Watching the FPL detectives: Tracking flights, social media clues and Haaland family transfers

Watching the FPL detectives: Tracking flights, social media clues and Haaland family transfers
By Joey D'Urso
Dec 21, 2023

It reads more like the plot of a true-crime podcast or the work of a private investigator.

A man’s alleged journey between Spain and the United Kingdom is tracked in a forensic series of 10 bullet points. These analyse logos in the back of a social media photo, and cross-reference it with flight-tracking records to deduce the man’s location.

Advertisement

But this is not an attempt to track down a criminal. Nor is it a police officer trying to crack a case.

Instead, it’s a post on the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) forum of the messageboard website Reddit. This is a Scandinavian detective drama; one concerning Erling Haaland.

Using those social media clues, a user established that Haaland had travelled to Spain to see a foot specialist for an injury. This made him a doubt for a game against Crystal Palace after missing the previous match against Luton Town. This was a hot topic in FPL, where as many as 80 per cent of players had the Norwegian in their teams at the start of the season.

Fans of the game, played by 11million people worldwide, are increasingly obsessive about how to get an advantage in a game of fine margins but it is often hard to separate fact from fiction.

The Reddit post analysed a selfie the player posted on Instagram (seen below). The photo featured the logo of an aeroplane maintenance firm Aviapartner, which operates at airports in southern Spain but not in the UK.

This information was linked to the timing of a private jet which flew from Marbella to Manchester, building up the theory that Haaland travelled back from Spain late on Thursday, leaving little time to prepare for City’s game on Saturday afternoon.

FPL users saw all this as a sign that Haaland was unlikely to feature against Palace.

 The Reddit post deducing Haaland’s potential movements

Haaland scored more points than anyone else in the competition last season. This season, he is the most expensive player in the game (£13.9m). This means FPL fans do not want him taking up a precious spot in their team if he is not going to play.

And the evidence to support the Haaland injury theory went further — provided by Alfie Haaland, the player’s father who had a prominent career in English football as a player for Leeds United and City.

Amid the vast constellation of social media pages, podcasts and YouTube channels dedicated to FPL, someone spotted that Haaland Senior had subbed his son out of his FPL team ahead of a game against Luton.

Alfie Haaland is part of a ‘Haaland Family League’, which includes Astor Haaland, the City striker’s older brother — who had also sold the player.

FPL players managed to track down Haaland’s girlfriend, too, and a friend, who had all made the same move. Pretty overwhelming evidence that all turned out to be correct.

The Premier League has no policy restricting how players or their families play the game, it even indeed encourages them to do so. Official accounts regularly show interviews in which players discuss their performance or price in FPL.

Serial FPL players say although the rumours were correct on this occasion, it is often hard to distinguish between the noise and accurate information.

Advertisement

“Some FPL accounts on Twitter are known for being able to provide leaks before the deadline and are pretty accurate with it,” says Rami Alaeddine, a London-based energy consultant who is currently in the top 100 players. “There are also the people that jump on this and make guesses to someday get it right and gain some followers.”

A user called ‘FPL Toni’, who has a big social media following, quietly took Haaland out of his team a day before the news formally broke that he would be out for the Luton game. He later claimed to have inside information.

Two years ago, there was a flurry of incidents in which players accidentally leaked injury news through FPL transfers.

Leeds United captain Liam Cooper had transferred Ezgjan Alioski out of his side ahead of a game against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Alioski had started the previous 17 games in all competitions for Leeds but was absent from the start at Molineux.

An FPL league made up of Leeds players and staff league was discovered by users of the website Reddit. Changes have also been made by staff members at Manchester United and Fulham and highlighted by ‘insider’ social media accounts.

The issue even made its way into a manager’s press conference when Jack Grealish, then playing for Aston Villa, was transferred out by several team-mates and members of the club’s non-playing staff ahead of a game against Leicester City.

The information was revealed by a secretive Twitter account called @insider_fpl, who spoke to The Athletic at the time. The individual running the account — a 32-year-old man from Norway — said he set up lists of people connected to clubs who use FPL as a bit of fun and it gained a lot of traction on social media. But it suddenly became a big deal.

“I’ve been made aware that on social media there were some rumours that he wasn’t going to play,” said Villa boss Dean Smith. “If it’s coming out of our training ground, then I (will) find out where it is coming from and reprimand where it’s coming from.”

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

Comment: PL players shouldn't be allowed to play FPL - it's a conflict of interest

The FPL insider was taken aback by all of the reactions. “This project went from an idea to banning players from playing in three weeks, so it’s gone very quickly. I hope the consequences are mild for the players.”

After the furore, he decided to anonymise non-playing staff who could get in trouble for inadvertently leaking team selections. The account has gone quiet for the last two seasons.

Although FPL leaks might seem trivial, they can have a big impact on the gambling markets — the odds dramatically shifted away from Aston Villa in that Leicester game after it became known that their best player would be out.

A sports betting insider said at the time that the odds shift could “almost certainly” be attributed to rumours about Grealish’s fitness. The effect is particularly large in cases in which one individual is particularly important to a team, as was the case with Grealish and Villa at the time.

Advertisement

Leicester won the game but when it comes to online gambling exchanges, it is not necessary to predict the correct outcome to make money. If you are sure that odds will shift — for example, if you know a key player is injured before the news is publicly announced — you can lock in a profit before kick-off.

Inside information is a big concern to footballing authorities and football insiders are increasingly aware of the awkward situations that players using FPL can throw up.

Despite this, there is no suggestion of dramatic gambling movements relating to the Haaland injury ahead of the Luton or Crystal Palace games.

 Haaland has been out of the City team — and his family’s (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)

There is no ban on players playing FPL, and many do play. One unofficial league has Burnley’s Swedish defender Hjalmar Ekdal as top of the current players. But players are increasingly aware of the consequences their team selections can have.

Michael Han-McEvoy, a risk and compliance officer based in Sydney, Australia, is third in the overall FPL league. He says: “Some of the leaks are true but my opinion on it is that I would take it with a grain of salt at first glance and try to fact-check it with reputable sources.”

He argues that leaks from family and friends are a rare occurrence.

More important than monitoring for leaks is consuming lots of FPL-related content on Twitter and podcasts, as well as stories in credible news outlets about injuries and other absences, he says. “The other is to simply watch as many games end to end as possible because the eye test can give you a lot of clues.”

But with more and more people playing FPL and searching ever harder for ways to gain an edge, social media sleuthing, whether accurate or not, is here to stay.

(Top photos: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

Get all-access to exclusive stories.

Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.