On Wednesday, fans of the Atlanta United FC were given some exciting news via an announcement from the MLS that they would be bringing in Celtic forward Kyogo Furuhashi.
But shortly after, the announcement was deleted and the news was debunked, prompting an apology.
In a statement to ESPN, MLS detailed how they came upon the false report and apologized for the mistake.
“Major League Soccer’s website mistakenly posted an article that named the wrong player as having signed with an MLS club,” the league said in a statement. “The article was immediately removed and corrected. MLS extends its sincere apologies to the impacted parties.”
The obvious question following this kind of mistake is how could something like this get misinterpreted.
Before Wednesday’s announcement, Furuhashi had been linked to Atlanta United in a report from Daily Mail last month, which detailed that a $12 million transfer offer was made for the 29-year-old forward. And Atlanta did recently bring in Ronny Deila as their new manager. He has a connection as a past manager of Furuhashi’s current club.
What may have complicated matters further is that Atlanta United had been teasing an announcement for the past couple of days on social media prior to the MLS announcement on Wednesday.
Vol. 1 ⏳
乞うご期待#5StripesDontStop pic.twitter.com/of3t7D9LHz
— Atlanta United FC (@ATLUTD) January 7, 2025
Ultimately, they did bring in a transfer on Thursday but it was Cayman Togashi, a forward who played for Sagan Tosu of the Meiji Yasuda J1 League in Japan.
Born in America, made in Japan 🇺🇸🇯🇵
Welcome to Atlanta, Cayman Togashi ✍️
アトランタへようこそ、ケイマン富樫 pic.twitter.com/lWcWHO97yK
— Atlanta United FC (@ATLUTD) January 8, 2025
On paper, it sure seems like it would be difficult for the MLS to “mistake” these two players considering they played in two entirely different leagues. It’s not like the Meiji Yasuda J1 League and the Scottish Premiership is all that close in proximity.
