Twitter joke causes small frenzy

Published Jan. 24, 2013 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Jimmy Kebe was just trying to be funny.

Instead, the France-born Reading midfielder caused a minor frenzy in the soccer world Thursday by tweeting ''on my way to Newcastle'' to ''sign a 4 years contract.''

Kebe said he was joking about Newcastle's penchant for signing French players. The Premier League team had signed three in the January transfer window, taking the number of Frenchmen in its squad to nine, when Kebe took to Twitter.

After the phony transfer was reported in England, the two teams issued denials and Kebe admitted it was just a joke.

Kebe later tweeted ''oups i thought if you're french and play football u just pop in to Newcastle and sign a contract ???? Not a chance of leaving (hashtag)LoveReadingFc(hashtag).''

A few hours after the incident, Newcastle picked up yet another French player, Moussa Sissoko, from Toulouse.