The story came from a TV journalist Adriano Del Monte, who has a verified blue Twitter tick. His tweet was: “Cristiano Ronaldo’s @PestanaCR7 hotels will become hospitals next week, where patients in Portugal will be treated free of charge. He will pay all medical staff. #COVID19 What a man.”

There was only one problem: the story was a hoax.

A spokesman for the hotel denied it. Ronaldo made no mention of it because it’s not true. Hotels are having a hard time of it as it is without having to be linked to being turned into hospitals to treat those suffering with the virus. AFP were told by the chain: “The information is inaccurate. We did not receive any indication in this regard.”

Ronaldo and Messi are regularly the subject of hoax stories. My editor at FourFourTwo magazine asked me to check out a story about Albert Fantrau, supposedly a childhood friend of Ronaldo who had a trial with him at Sporting Lisbon. Having beaten several players and with only an open goal to put the ball into, Fantrau selflessly passed to Cristiano “because you are better than me” – Ronaldo was then the recipient of a contract rather than Fantrau. I called contacts in Lisbon and they confirmed that it was a hoax.

As a journalism student, one of my peers told a lecturer that he had a great story. He’d heard of a story about a man who got drunk and woke up in a street with one of his kidneys missing. There was, he said, a black market in stolen kidneys. Other students were shocked, since they too were potential targets.

“Fantastic story,” said the lecturer. “Now get to the people involved and speak to them. If you can’t get to the person who had his kidney stolen, the person selling the kidneys or the doctors doing illegal, get some witnesses.”

The student nodded, but he could never find any of the above because it was a complete fabrication.

Football, like everywhere else in these online days, is full of fake news and it is very difficult to discern what is true or not, partly because it is often plausible. The big lies are relatively easy to spot, not so the smaller ones which flood out every day. People want their prejudices reinforced, they want to read of generous gestures by people they admire.

There are regularly false quotes about the former Manchester United player Paul Scholes from other great players. If they’re accompanied by a photo of the player then somehow adds credibility for some. I know they’re fake because I spoke to four of the people quoted to ask them specifically about Scholes. The Brazilian legend Socrates complimented him unprompted when I met him in Sao Paulo in March 10, 2010 – it was supposed to be a day earlier but he went to carnival with Zico and turned up a day late.

I asked Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Xavi about Scholes – for his testimonial programme, complete with an invite to play in his testimonial game. Those interviews were done in August 2011 at the training ground on the day that Alexis Sanchez joined Barcelona.

They all agreed that Scholes was a great player, but the quotes I see now are nothing like what was actually said. They’ve been twisted and contorted. Messi simply did not sit watching video tapes of Scholes at La Masia in the hope that one day he could emulate him as the web would have you believe.

Not that this example is particularly dangerous, even though when established sources repeat these fake quotes but what about the Ronaldo story? I struck by the number of people I’d consider intelligent retweeting or commenting on it. They really wanted to believe that it was true. And then there’s a backlash – because, the online logic goes, shouldn’t someone as wealthy as Ronaldo be doing this anyway? Suddenly, by implication, he’s mean and selfish.