THE advent of camera phones and social media has made it increasingly difficult to keep secrets in football, as Jack Cork can testify after joining the Clarets in the summer.

The midfielder returned to Turf Moor on a permanent deal after two loan spells at the club in 2010 and 2011, but after Burnley had agreed an initial £8million fee with Swansea City the 28-year-old travelled north to complete the deal.

It was just during a meeting with Sean Dyche and other key staff at the club at Manchester Airport that Cork found himself snapped by an eager phone, with the picture immediately doing the rounds on Twitter, virtually confirming his impending arrival.

Asked about the moment his meeting with Dyche became public knowledge, Cork said: "It's tough to do anything now. Nothing stays secret for long. That fan came up to me after and said 'good luck for next season, Jack' as I was walking out.

"We weren't actually doing anything. I was doing my car registration and having a coffee with a few people from the club. We were doing it all the next day. I'd literally done nothing - just got there. Even on the top floor in the quiet lounge..."

In a summer where transfer fees started high and rocketed higher, signing Cork for under eight figures looks a shrewd bit of business for the Clarets given the way he has started the season.

But the midfielder insists that the exorbitant fees are part and parcel of the game and aren't particularly causing eyebrows to be raised in dressing rooms.

"It's just accepted at the minute," he said. "The last two or three years have been like that. The money for staying up... it's just how it is.

"The Neymar thing looks a bit crazy. It's a lot of money but because of the money coming in it's only going to come back out the other way."

Cork captained the Swans at times last season as they stayed in the Premier League despite going through three managers in a season.

The former Chelsea youngster has now swapped the upheaval at the Liberty Stadium for stability at Turf Moor, with Dyche a month away from celebrating five years in charge of Burnley.

"It did affect us last year. It was tough with the change of managers," Cork said of Swansea's campaign, that ended successfully under Paul Clement.

"It's good to come to a stable club with the manager. The board and players trust him and enjoy working with him.

"They (Swansea) probably made the right decisions with the managers in the end but it did affect us."

Cork has worked with Dyche before at Watford, and he added: "The whole group of coaches were good there. Brendan, Malky and Sean. They picked things up from each other.

"Everyone has seen things in the way he does things and how he works. Trust in him has paid off and he's shown what a good manager he can be.

"He's very good with the lads. He gets everybody together and working hard."