England's most high-profile player is open to offers
from a small elite of Europe's leading clubs as he prepares to sever his
ties with Premier League winners Manchester United
By Wayne Veysey | Chief Correspondent
With
David Beckham having called time on his professional career,
Wayne Rooney’s status as the most high profile footballer of English nationality is unchallenged.
As
befitting such a player of such distinction, Rooney’s future promises
to be the pre-eminent Premier League-related transfer saga of the summer
window.
One of Sir Alex Ferguson’s last acts as Manchester United manager was
to go public with the forward’s desire to leave Old Trafford, a
delicate situation complicated even further by the shared history of the
Scot’s dug-out successor David Moyes and Rooney.
Speaking after his final home match as United boss, a 2-1 win against
Swansea, and in the wake of widespread reports that England’s talisman
had handed in a transfer request, Sir Alex said: “I don't think Wayne
was keen to play, simply because he has asked for a transfer. I think he
wants to think it through in his mind - I think that's a good idea.”
Drawing out the battle lines in what had become a head-on collision
between England’s biggest club and player, Sir Alex added: “We're not
going to let him go. I think maybe he is a bit frustrated. He has been
taken off once or twice in the past couple of weeks.''
The private response from the Rooney camp was that the 27-year-old
had not handed in an official transfer request, merely expressing his
frustration to Ferguson that his status had been downgraded in the final
months of a season in which he was dropped for the biggest match – the
second leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid –
and subsequently frequently substituted in the second half of key
domestic encounters.
Nevertheless, well-placed sources have told
Goal that
Rooney is keen to sever his ties with United as he sets his sights on a new club next season.
Contrary to reports that Ferguson’s retirement has resolved the issue
and that the appointment of Moyes could prompt a U-turn from the
forward, it is understood that Rooney is hostile to playing again under
the manager who handed him his debut in professional football.
Moyes successfully sued the former Everton man for libel in 2008 and,
although both men have held out public olive branches and insisted the
matter has been resolved, bad blood remains.
Rooney has maintained a public silence over the last month but,
privately, has begun to lay the foundations for what is an increasingly
inevitable exit from Old Trafford.
As revealed by Goal,
his camp held two secret meetings with two clubs in the same day last week, believed to be an English club in the morning followed by a continental big-hitter in the afternoon.
Only a small elite are able to offer Rooney the combination of
sporting challenge and £250,000-a-week wages required to tempt him to
pastures new.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco have
all expressed an interest in signing the England international this
summer, while Bayern Munich publicly distanced themselves from a move
for the player after being strongly linked with a summer swoop.
PSG and Monaco, the nouveau riche French clubs, have the spending
power to match and even exceed Rooney's United package, although this
might not be enough to persuade the notoriously England-centric striker
to swap the Premier League for Ligue 1.
Real Madrid are in the
market for at least one A-list front man as they prepare to offload
Gonzalo Higuain, while Bayern Munich could also re-enter the race as
they face a 12-month wait to land top target Robert Lewandowski.
At home,
the strongest interest in Rooney comes from London rivals Arsenal and Chelsea,
although it is not inconceivable that Manchester City could make a move
if they fail to land prime centre-forward target Edinson Cavani.
Arsenal are the current bookmakers’ favourites to sign Rooney, even
though any deal would require the club not only smashing their transfer
record but also nearly tripling the salary packages of current top
earners Theo Walcott and Thomas Vermaelen, who are on around
£90,000-a-week
Nevertheless, Arsene Wenger has gone public with his interest in
Rooney and outlined the challenge that Moyes has in "bridging the gap"
with the player who described him in his autobiography as overbearing,
controlling and ultimately responsible for his decision to move to Old
Trafford for £25million in 2004.
Furthermore, chief executive
Ivan
Gazidis explained in a wide-ranging interview that the Gunners now
possess the financial muscle to compete for the world's elite players.
Asked if Arsenal were now potentially in a position to pay a £25
million transfer fee and wages of £200,000 a week for one player,
Gazidis declared: "Of course we could do that. We could do more than
that."
From United’s perspective, selling Rooney is not the doomsday
scenario it was in October 2010, when he first tried to tunnel his way
out of Old Trafford.
The suspicion harboured by Ferguson and several other key members of
United’s technical staff was that Rooney might have already passed his
peak and that his lifestyle is not conducive to the kind of longevity
enjoyed by Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes.
Robin van Persie’s goals last season relegated United’s No.10 from
main man to a mere member of the supporting cast, while Shinji Kagawa
could further diminish Rooney's leading light status should he stay at
Old Trafford.
That is unlikely to be palatable to the player and his long-time
agent Paul Stretford, who want to test the market and see what is on
offer elsewhere.
Any transfer would have to be approved by
Moyes and sanctioned by the board, while other hurdles would need to be
overcome, including the input of kit manufacturers of Nike, who have
stressed the importance of Rooney remaining at Old Trafford as part of
their continuing commercial partnership with United.
However,
Moyes and senior United officials might weigh up Rooney's match-winning
talents with his capacity for causing disruption and discreetly let
suitors know their asking price.
If United play hard ball, as
the two years remaining on Rooney's contract fully entitles them to, the
club risks a marked depreciation in value of one of their most saleable
assets. They also open the possibility of the player downing tools and
going out of his way to engineer a move, as Luka Modric, Van Persie and
Clint Dempsey all did to varying degrees last summer.
The suspicion is that the saga will reach a conclusion one way or another by the time the summer window shuts on August 31.
Should Rooney receive an offer that ticks all his boxes, then he is unlikely to wear a United shirt again.
