Wayne Rooney was never characterized as a quiet guy on or off the pitch. This Thursday, the English press reveals a new episode of this at Manchester United. In 2010, Rooney felt alone after the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tévez. He was concerned about the direction the club was taking and the immediate future and decided to go to Sir Alex Ferguson’s office.
The meeting of two guys with a lot of character did not end as expected. The Scotsman told the Liverpool player to do the favor of leaving, to which Rooney, without thinking twice, executed his ‘transfer request’, a formal request to the club to ask to leave. This is non-binding (it does not oblige the club to transfer whoever formally asks to leave), but it does make clear the player’s discomfort at that time.
This is how Rooney tells it in his Amazon Prime documentary titled with his own last name. “They sold Tevez and Cristiano and I was the only high-profile player. I went to see Ferguson and said ‘what’s the plan?’ Within a minute, we had bought two young players who hadn’t shown anything and I remember Ferguson’s response being: “Get out of my office!” he says.
The player asked to leave and was considering whether to sign because they offered him a lot of money, but he wanted to win titles. “They were offering me five years for £200,000 a week, so it would have been very easy for me to have said ‘let me sign that now’, but success was more important to me.”
Gary Neville appears in the documentary to give the impression of the locker room before what happened. “It was the only big disappointment with Wayne. The mates were playing a match, take your shit somewhere else. We saw it on Sky Sports News. It hit us like a ton of bricks, because he wasn’t like that. He didn’t hurt his teammates. I think that was the only time that he thought he let himself down, “acknowledges the English.
Rooney continued at United until 2017, when he decided to return to Everton for a season and then try North American football and end up retiring at Derby County, the team he now coaches.
With a vast track record, he won all the titles at United. Five Premier Leagues, one Champions League, one Club World Cup, one FA Cup, four League Cups, one Europa League and four Community Shields adorn its windows.
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