We find ourselves once again in the middle of the Premiership's silly season. It’s an interesting time of year where every decent player at a non-top club will be rumoured to have been seen in another town. Rumours therefore kick-in to the horror of the genuine football fan who wants nothing more than to see his or her favourite player at their favourite ground.

Why is it that a player must publicly state that he will never join a club before he is stopped being linked to them? Even then, this is often not enough. Let us use the example of Tottenham striker Dimitar Berbatov. Berbatov has consistently stated, or through his agent, that he is happy at the club. Manager Martin Jol has stated that he wants him to stay, as does chairman Daniel Levy. They, along with Berbatov’s agent, have also confirmed that the player wants to stay at least for another season.

How many more reassurances do the rumour-mongers want? During an interview in a national paper in Bulgaria, Berbatov is quoted as saying that he respects Sir Alex Ferguson, and thinks that his team are enjoying their football, and that yes, he does respect players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney. This is not surprising. This is not news. At least it wouldn’t be if it weren’t the silly season.

Why do football fans do this? If you scan the Internet for 10 minutes or so, one can find literally thousands of sites quoting rumours about every player. As soon as one player is known to have been out of the town that his team is in, every person who works in administration at Upton Park, a cleaner at St. James’ Park, a brother’s wife who is a cleaner at Ashburton Grove or a gardener’s dogsbody who uses the same investment banker as the managing director of a particular club all claim to know the “inside gossip”.

Here’s some inside gossip for all of them – the manager will let the board know who he thinks they should bring in. The board then approaches that of the parent club for the player (assuming that they are not coming to the end of their contract and the board isn’t headed by Peter Kenyon) with an offer. This is negotiated and finally agreed upon. The player will then be taken to see the club's financial representatives where a pay structure is thrashed out and for a medical (this very rarely happens at the stadium).

Once this is confirmed, both teams fax their confirmation to the Football Association, make an announcement to the stock exchange (if necessary) and release the news to the public. This is an extremely simple process, and very rarely will give rise to rumours, as the players themselves do not get involved until the late stages. A club cannot disclose any information to anyone, and would not be stupid enough to do so for so many reasons.

This means that, unfortunately for many football fans (and I include myself in this)there is no point in trawling the Internet for the latest gossip. The only people in the know are likely to be the club, and the first others to know about any possible deal are the highly-placed and highly-rated sports journalists. And they wouldn't spill the beans if they knew what was good for them.

But I won't stop clicking the links, or reading the rumours - and neither will you. But it doesn't mean we have to be happy about it!