Leaked transfer news is nothing new in the window, but a Manchester United star has now admitted to having been responsible for his own leak in the media.
Back in 2017, Nemanja Matic was in the process of undergoing a medical and completing his move to the Red Devils from Chelsea, and WhatsApp would play a big role in his leaked transfer.
At the time, an image of the Serbian completing his transfer started doing the rounds on various social media channels before the official announcement, and Matic has now explained what happened.
In an interview with the UTD Podcast, he said: "It wasn't 'someone'... I took the picture!
"I took it, obviously not to put it on social media, but because I have a (WhatsApp) group with fifty people, more or less, from my village (in Serbia). In that group are the guys I grew up with.
"To be honest, they were texting every two minutes, 'Is the deal done? Did you sign?' For two days, I didn't reply to anything. But that day, I woke up and saw 70 messages. They sent me reports from newspapers saying the deal was done. So I sent them a selfie.
"I was doing the medical test then and, of course, they probably sent it to some friends. The power of social media did the job."
While the image did the rounds and fans discussed the legitimacy of it, Matic continued with the formalities, and the official announcement arrived the next day.
Matic said that he did not get into any trouble for the leak, and forgave his friends for their actions despite the social media storm.
"I forgive them (my friends) because I was so happy and most of them support United."
