José Luis Pasques, the press agent for Atletico Madrid manager, Diego Simeone arrived in Madrid to find Italian digital news outlet, Il Giornale had published an interview with the Argentine boss, which had already made the rounds around the Spanish media, that he claims never actually took place and is completely false.
Just moments after tweeting that he had arrived in Madrid from Argentina, Pasques demanded an answer from Il Giornale and adamantly denied that the interview, where Simeone claims he wants to be Atletico Madrid’s Sir Alex Ferguson ever took place and insisted that it was a complete farce, but only after it had been picked up by all of the major news outlets.
“Could the Italian daily, Il Giornale explain to me why they’ve published an article with Diego Simeone, which never actually took place????
“I’m sorry that this farce and irresponsible piece by Il Giornale of Italy was picked up, I now begin the new year with extra work.
“For those of you asking why it was picked up and I wasn’t asked before hand, it was because I was just on a 13 hour flight from Argentina today.
“As soon as we learned about it, the club’s communications department and I made the necessary clarifications and worked together as we always do.
“And I thank all of the national and international media outlets and all of our colleagues for believing in our information.”
The articles has since been taken down from the original site, but our English version can still be found here.