Actually I think it's the other way round. Modern football is the only place this could happen. I remember the times when I was young and clubs actually tried to keep their players - there was not such thing as a 'selling' club - to fight for a title, and if a player wanted to move to another club, money was more of a compensation than a 'price' you could pay to 'buy' someone - there was no such established transfer market as we have today.
Those times when you could read a newspaper and you could find out if a player moved or not, or if negotiations were ongoing, but you didn't have to read a shitload of false rumours generated merely to entice people to buy the paper the next day, or to check the webpage every hour or so looking for new developements.
All of this rumour **** is a by-product of modern football, wether we like it or not.