Masal Bugduv

Masal Bugduv is a fictional Moldovan youth footballer who was the subject of a hoax. He was created by Irish journalist Declan Varley as a social experiment.

History

With a fabricated backstory describing a teenage prodigy on a web of blog postings, evidently created by different people, reports of the youth talent were ultimately published in a The Times article titled "Football's top 50 rising stars",^[1][2] as well as in When Saturday Comes and Goal.com.^[3][4] As a means to establish credibility to the identity, the creators of the hoax planted text into Wikipedia articles and forged Associated Press reports.^[3][2] The erroneous information remained in Wikipedia from July 2008 to January 2009.

The entry in The Times read, "30. Masal Bugduv (FC Olimpia Bălţi): Moldova’s finest, the 16-year-old attacker has been strongly linked with a move to Arsenal, work permit permitting. And he’s been linked with plenty of other top clubs as well."^[3]

The Times later removed Masal from their list and published a clarification.^[5] Goal.com printed an apology for the mention of "phantom prodigy Masal Bugduv", stating the information had come from "a fake Associated Press report."^[6]

Masal Bugduv sounds very similar to the Irish pronunciation of M'asal Beag Dubh (My Little Black Donkey), a story by the Irish-language writer Pádraic Ó Conaire about a dishonest salesman who seeks an exaggerated price for a lazy donkey.^[7] John Burns of The Sunday Times suggested that the Ó Conaire story was indeed the inspiration for the entire hoax, and that the prank, which also included a fake Moldovan newspaper titled Diario Mo Thon (Diary My Ass), was in effect a satire on the football transfer market.^[8]

Brian Phillips, a blogger of Runofplay.com, described in an article for Slate the anatomy of the hoax,^[2] featuring a testimony email of "the alleged hoaxer's lengthy explanation of the Bugduv-creation process".^[9]

In 2017, Irish journalist Declan Varley revealed that he created Bugduv as a social experiment, frustrated by having to sieve through countless speculations about football transfers.^[10]

See also

• List of hoaxes