Chris Waugh shares what he's heard after bizarre claims around cut-price Alexander Isak deal made in Spanish press

On Monday, it was claimed that Newcastle United were likely to accept an offer for Alexander Isak in the summer.

Not just that, but the claim was that the offer would be just €100 million (£83 million) and that Newcastle had an agreement with Isak over allowing him to leave, likely to Barcelona.

We wrote that we didn't believe a word of it, and we still don't. There's no way Newcastle would sell their most prized asset for such a small amount of money when they could kick off a bidding war starting higher than that figure. Not that they have any intention of selling anyway.

The story gained a lot of traction and was covered far and wide, but one fan has asked Chris Waugh in his weekly Q&A for The Athletic whether there's any truth in it.

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Newcastle United are highly unlikely to accept £88m for Alexander Isak

Chris Waugh is obviously far better placed to shoot down these types of stories than we are as he has connections at the club, we just have common sense and research on our side.

Unsurprisingly, Waugh immediately rubbished the rumours coming out of Spain.

"While I would never question the sourcing of another journalist’s story, it does not tally with any of the messages from multiple figures inside Newcastle surrounding Isak’s future.

"Come the summer, even if Newcastle do not tie Isak down to a contract extension, which is almost certainly what they will attempt to do, he still has three years remaining on his deal.

"Newcastle are in an extremely strong negotiating position, which is useful as well because almost half of the £60million ($75.6m) club-record fee they paid Real Sociedad for the striker is still amortised over the remainder of Isak’s contract. That means the first £30m of any theoretical fee received this summer would merely wipe out the remainder of the amortised costs on his contract, highlighting another reason why they will demand such a significant price for one of the world’s most sought-after forwards."

When engagement is more important than truth something is going very wrong

SPORT's article probably did bits in terms of views yesterday, so whoever wrote the story will be getting heavily patted on the back in their offices today, we're sure, but at what point do we realise that integrity is better than clicks?

We could sit here and make up outrageous stories about transfers based on the tiniest bit of fact so that it passes the sniff test, but how many people read that story yesterday and actually believed it would happen?

Worse. How many outlets ran with it and didn't question the validity?