Troy Deeney gets involved in fantasy football draft dispute with signed letter

Football fans will be used to players handing in transfer requests when they’re seeking a move to another club, but have you ever seen a fantasy football transfer request before?

Killian Woods has, partly because he wrote it himself. The 28-year-old freelance journalist from Ashbourne, Ireland, is involved in a draft fantasy league, where each player can only be owned by one team, and he was after Troy Deeney.

The only problem was that a fellow manager – and good friend – had Deeney in his team. Cue a transfer request signed by the man himself in an attempt to get a swap over the line.

“Thank you for the faith you showed in drafting me for your fantasy football team, but my heart does not lie with The Kilmainham Krabs,” the letter read.

“I wish to be transferred to the Galway Goalscorers immediately. Yours, Troy Deeney.”

Woods typed the letter up himself and sent it to Watford to get it signed, but why was he so keen to sign Deeney in particular?

“I fell in love with Deeney when I first saw him bang in that play-off goal against Leicester in 2013,” he told the Press Association.

“I love that he’s not a ‘six-pack with a fresh haircut’ type of player, he’s just a brute force and route-one football type of guy.”

But it’s not just affection that plays a part in this particular transfer saga. Woods’ draft league is a particularly competitive one when it comes to signings, with a mammoth 14 teams to divide a small pool of good players between.

“He (Deeney) has had a great start to the season and it looks like Watford will stay somewhat strong for the rest of the year,” Woods said. “And there are very few strikers to go around in our league.

“Only until you’ve played a draft fantasy league do you realise how few (good) strikers there are in the Premier League.

“I drafted Christian Eriksen first and by the time it came back around to me there were no good strikers left.”

In order to obtain Deeney’s signature, Woods made a donation to the club’s Community Sports and Education Trust, as recommended by the club website.

Not long later he received a message from the club to let him know his letter had been signed.

“When Watford replied I couldn’t believe they were willing to deal with my nonsense,” said Woods. “I didn’t want to jinx it by mentioning it to other managers in the league. I was itching to, but I didn’t.”

Instead, Woods announced it with a fake press conference uploaded to a fake online TV station used by the league, although it sounds as if the letter, impressive as it is, might not have had the desired effect.

“He (Cailbhe) is my fantasy football nemesis, but also a very good friend,” said Woods. “It seems like his team always beats mine even though his side is always awful.

“When I got the signed transfer request, I realised that this actually won’t help matters at all. This stunt of mine has just entrenched him more, so he’s not giving in.”

Just like all good transfer sagas, it looks as though this one could drag on, with or without Deeney’s intervention.