Newspaper agendas are an interesting thing. I often walk past shops and take a sneak peek at what made the front page and it’s the usual drivel.

Celebrity break-ups, make-ups and marriages dominate the news and I have never understood why.

However, I do find it interesting when a sport story makes it on the front.

Or more often than not, a footballer has done something wrong which we need to know about.

For me, I don’t find it important at all. I generally don’t consider media gossip news (apart from transfer gossip obviously).

There are more important issues in the world that should be dominating the front pages right now.

The Labour coup for one, the ongoing fallout from the EU referendum for another.

So imagine my surprise when in the last week, I have seen a story about Raheem Sterling showing off a house and another about how the Football Association’s senior communications manager “bragged” about England’s hotel in France and his head rest on the plane.

Yes, a national newspaper led with “adult brags about head rest.” It’s not a slow news day, week or month. So I find it inexcusable for a newspaper to splash on these stories.

When you dig deeper, it becomes embarrassing.

Sterling showing off a mansion is in poor taste, it is never good when a rich person shows off their belongings.

But it isn’t news. You go on any actor, actress or celebrities Instagram or Twitter and you will find pictures of their house and cars.

MTV did a show about it and I didn’t see it making any front pages then.

So why is Sterling any different? He was coming off the back of a really bad performance at the Euros but so were the other England players who took to the field against Iceland last Monday.

Bad timing, yes. But when you dig deeper and find out that the house he was showing his friends was actually his mother’s, the narrative changes.

No longer is the story about a young, rich, ungrateful kid flashing his wealth online.

It becomes son gives back to his mother who raised him. Or that’s how you could spin it.

Sterling is extremely close to his mum and has never hidden that. He is thankful for what she has done for him and admits he wouldn’t be where he is without her.

So as a thank you, he moved her out of her house in London and into something bigger in Manchester.

I find it sweet and if I could, I would love to do the same thing for my mum.

The NBA draft was a few weeks back and the number one pick, Ben Simmons, said the first thing he would do with his millions is buy his mum a house.

Former professional wrestler-turned actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has openly admitted he has bought his mum new cars and a house as a thank you for raising him.

New Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka said last week that he and his brother give 80 per cent of their wages to their parents as a thank you and because they “young and naive” with money.

All lovely gestures. All not on the front page of a newspaper but Sterling’s gesture was.

Some people have claimed that the attack on Sterling isn’t because of his wealth but because of the colour of his skin.

I didn’t believe that. Until I saw the same newspaper tweet out a story about a young black non-league footballer who was selling drugs to fund a rich footballer lifestyle.

Nothing wrong with that until you realise that the picture they used was of Sterling.

The story had nothing to do with the Manchester City winger. So why use a picture of him?

Football journalists have spent the last few years building up Sterling on the back pages, only to tear him down on the front.

I get that’s how newspapers operate and that it sells papers. But there comes a time when you back off and the recent “stories” about Sterling have not been justified.

Neither was the one about the FA’s communications officer. Andy Walker is a lovely guy and very good at his job.

So imagine seeing yourself on the front page of a newspaper at the start of July because of a tweet sent out the start of June.

Before England flew to France, Walker took a picture of the team standing on the stairs of the plane and of his seat on the plane, which had his name on the headrest. Nothing that big.

Fast forward a month and England have been dumped out of the competition to the hands of Iceland.

A newspaper then trawled through his tweets, dug out this one and used it as their front page story, saying how he was bragging about the headrest and the hotel the team were staying in.

It was good to see journalists defend Walker and rubbish the story, if you could even call it that, but it is horrible that a national newspaper was so desperate for news they used Walker as a scapegoat.

Even if they used it as a story the day after the tweet, it would be scraping the bottle of the barrel. But to do it a month later is just sad.

I would have loved to have been in the news meet where that was agreed.

“Hey, I found this really old tweet about nothing. Want to make it our front page and ignore the current plight of British politics?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, let’s do that.”

That is how I imagine the conversation went between the bigwigs at the paper, it sounds stupid but that’s how they have come across.

The tarnishing of Walker’s and Sterling’s names was and is inexcusable, especially as they were not stories to start with.

The disappointing thing is that this won’t be the last time a newspaper runs a story like this — to it’s this news.