I'd suggest the only media outlet that used a reference to SFC in its headline is the Southern Daily Echo for spectacularly obvious reasons. There's certainly no widespread linking to SFC to this story anywhere, apart from appearing in his "he played for..." list bit in each report, which is fair enough. He did.
And "star" is used by every newspaper on earth every day forever as a shorthand for "player" regardless of club, appearances or general star quality.
I think the only thing "stretching credulity" is you desperately trying to a make a news story that has nothing to do with us and has been reported everywhere as having nothing to do with us as being part of some media conspiracy against us.
You're about 90 years old but some of your posts suggest you've never seen a newspaper story before. Are you are high court judge or something?