For me, last week epitomises everything wrong with football today.
A journalist I follow on Twitter tweeted: “Rooney incident is the story of modern football; overpaid mercenaries squeezing greedy clubs, funded by poor fans. Pathetic.” Harsh but so true. We are used to British football’s reputation being dragged through the mud - every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Premier League is splashed across our Sunday papers each week for cheating with the latest wannabe celebrity WAG, and the John Terry saga earlier this year has ensured we aren’t easily shocked anymore. However, Wayne Rooney took football to new depths last week, no question about it.
You tell me how any normal football supporter can relate to a player who, after throwing his toys out of the pram, is punished by being given a five year contract on £250,000 a week? For the first time, the old cliché of ‘no player is bigger than the club’ has been proved wrong – at this current time, Rooney has managed to bring arguably the biggest club there is to its knees. He should be ashamed of himself.
As I travelled back from Birmingham V Blackpool on Saturday, I tuned into the new Five Live show with Robbie Savage. Unsurprisingly, he sided with Rooney. He even told a story of how he once had a club where he was worshipped “in the palm of his hand”, demanding a million pound a year and eventually getting it. By the way Savo, it doesn’t take a genius to work out your were referring to Blues. It may be typical Savage, but it shocked me how he believed he was well within his rights to take such large sums of money. He argued that we would do the same in our jobs, something many would agree on.
However, what these footballers fail to realise is the emotional investment that fans up and down the country place into their football teams. Like I said in an earlier post, the majority are out of touch with reality meaning they are clueless as to how their actions will be perceived.
To add insult to injury, Rooney then flees the UK to Dubai with the same wife and mother of his child that were at the centre of his most recent escapades involving prostitutes – it’s so morally wrong.
He’ll be back to face the music soon enough.
Let me cast your mind back to the USA game in the World Cup – Rooney reacting angrily to fans booing after failing to beat the Americans – best get prepared for more of the same I’m afraid, Wayne.
