Rumour spreads like wildfire through social networking site

Apparently, it has yet to dawn on most Twitter users that the site is a humongous waste of time, as thousands of German users were last night duped into believing Michael Ballack was about to return home.

A ‘Tweeter’ named @sachark set the ball rolling yesterday with the following message, which we have clumsily kindly translated:

“On the next table on the ICE [a type of German train], there are two prominent agents and a lawyer. For the last fifteen minutes they have been discussing Ballack’s transfer to Hamburger SV.”

Within minutes, the rumour spread across the social networking site like a Danielle Lloyd STD across the Tottenham dressing room. Many excited football fans were convinced the German captain was about to become a Hamburg player, and were apparently undeterred by the fact that the club could never afford his €20m+ transfer fee or extortionate wages.

The story has been picked up by the major players in the German media, including Bild and the Hamburger Abendblatt, forcing HSV spokesman Jörn wolf to issue a denial:

“This is a duck [a German idiom that means it isn’t true]. We have had no contact with Ballack.”

Twitter user @sachark is still adamant that his train-based discovery is valid, and has since responded by saying “the bluebird of Twitter is no duck.”