Entertainment For Lively Minds
Rooney - It's just about the cash
Posted by busker_du on 22 October 2010 - 6:40pm.
I was beginning to feel a bit down following the Government Spending Review this week, but the announcement that Wayne Rooney has just signed an extended deal for double the money with a club that's just posted an overall annual loss of £83,000,000 has really cheered me up. Forget Los 33, this is the feelgood story of the year.
Once a Red, always a Red, eh Wayne?
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As a United supporter
I'm torn about this. I think Rooney and his agent have acted despicably in questioning the club and its institutions. I certainly condemn the actions of the idiots who went to his house last night, but I hope the fans make clear their genuine displeasure with him when he next plays (I rather think they won't)*. I'm not sure how his team-mates will react, and wonder whether any ill-feeling will continue to fester to the detriment of the team performance.
On the other hand, in any other form of employment nobody would question an individual's right to secure the best financial deal for his services. Football, of course, doesn't work that way - emotion and irrationality are its main currency.
*Of course, if he makes his rumoured return against Man City and scores the winner, he will again be the hero...
Not sure I condemn the fans who made their point
outside Rooney's house. They buzzed his intercom, they did not damage anything. They wanted him to explain his comments, which seems perfectly reasonable to me.
More mixed feelings about the guys who torched Andy Carroll's car. He does seem to have behaved badly, but that was a step too far.
Hmmmm
A gang of 20 or so men, some with balaclavas on, politely demanding a quiet word? Doesn't quite ring true.
Someone has to have a word
when he starts insulting the manager, the club and the team. How else would these guys ever meet Rooney?
Same with Carroll, he has to get the message that he can't force himself on any girl who takes his fancy just because he is good at football. Burning his car is not the way though, I agree with that.
The next time he scores ...
... it's all forgotten.
BTW, how do the green and gold brigade feel about the club increasing their wage bill in such a way (albeit to keep one of their best players)?
Odds on the Glazers selling him for a lot more next summer or in 2012?
Hmm.
The club has massive debts, yet a new, presumuably more lucrative deal gets arranged after a week full of antics that demonstrate the worst excesses of player power in the modern game.
250 miles down the road, a club with some of the most passionate fans in the country slips ever closer to oblivion:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/p/portsmouth/9120108.stm
Football is brilliant; but at the moment it sucks.
Passionate, yes
But not many of 'em. Which is, of course, the problem.
And it seems somehow wrong that a club that has agreed a deal to pay just 20p in the pound to its creditors - large and small, and that over five years, is currently able to pay players that most other Championship clubs simply could not afford.
Pompey will, I fear, go to the wall.
The whole thing has been manipulated by a bunch of businessmen with an eye for a profit, aiming to exploit the extensive business land around Fratton Park. Portsmouth is the most densely populated city in Europe. That sort of land will make much gold, especially after Fratton Park is bulldozed.
I live in Portsmouth, but I support Southampton. No Southampton fan, however, will take joy from what happens to Pompey over the next few days.
Correct me if I am wrong by all means....
I lived near Pompey for a lot of years, & both my sons were born in the shadow of Fratton park.
I may well wrong on this, but in the mid / late 80s when Port Solent was still at the design stage, I seem to remember that it was suggested that Pompey & the Scummers could / should share a ground somewhere near Fareham, & Port Solent seemed to fit the bill.
Whatever the reasons, it never got going as an idea, but what if....
As a Southampton fan
Who works in Portsmouth, no I won't take joy from Portsmouth's demise. But I would like to see them playing at a level their income can support. I don't deny that some of their fans are very passionate but their attendance figures are woeful, even when they were in the Premier League. Yet they spent money as though they had 60,000 in every other week and not 16,000. And this from the "most densely populated city in Europe".
But I don't think they'll die. This is just another bit of brinkmanship among the dodgy businessmen who for too long have been involved with the club.
But if I were a hotel owner in Hull this weekend, I'd be asking for cash up front.
I am an armchair Manchester United fan...
and I am having trouble enjoying football like I used to. Other people on this site have expressed their feelings on the current state of the game far more eloquently than I could, but I'd like to throw in my two pence worth.
All this greed, media bullshit, agents' influence, lack of loyalty, overinflated egos and overinflated reputations has left me feeling that football is a dirty, seedy business. I don't follow Manchester United with the same fervour anymore because I don't respect the players* or the game as much as I once did.
So Rooney has signed a new deal. He may score loads of goals for the club again, but this whole affair has left me with the impression that he's just another greedy boy who has been showered with too much money and adulation. I respect his talent as a footballer, but as a person? Hmmm...
* With the notable exceptions of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, who seem like genuinely decent people to me.
I can't find the thread
I can't find the thread anywhere, but it strikes me that there was a discussion about "surprising" footballers.
Not the pond life ones (yes, Wayne, you) but Dirk Kuyt, who runs his foundation to help kids in 3rd World. I think Phil Neville got some plaudits for his work with bliss.
I don't disagree with your general point about some of the players, but there are some exceptions.
No offence meant at all
but an armchair football fan isn't a fan.
It's like me claiming to be a Nuclear Physics fan despite never having spent a moment studying the subject.
Football fans go to the football. If you don't you a barely interested observer. If this wasn't the case having seen Dylan in Manchester in '66 would have no more currency than having heard the CD.
Sorry mate.
No offence
... but that's a load of baloney.
Fan
I thought it was short for fanatic?
You can follow a team from your armchair but you'll never understand the social aspect of being a fan. There are two types of football supporters.
True, but...
A lot of "big" clubs have priced the true fans out with the crazy prices they charge and these people are more and more being replaced by people who go because Football is in vogue at the moment.
Clubs will ultimately pay the price as the next generations who have missed out on the thrills of seeing their team live will gradually lose interest..
As someone who was priced out after 30 years as a season ticket holder and who couldn't bear to be an "armchair fan" I have spent the last decade as a season ticket holder at my local team in the Rymans Premier.
The quality of Football maybe lower (but certainly not the sportsmanship) but I know the chairman the manager and the players to talk to.
The sense of community at the non-league level is what has completely been lost in higher Leagues as the greed and self interest of the premier clubs has spread like a particularly unpleasant virus.
Next time Man Utd throw bigger wages at another team's player to get him to join they should see the hipocracy of some of their statements this week.
Offside
No, don't buy it. Seen it on many a football forum - your standing as a football "fan" is validated by how long you've had a season ticket. I haven't paid to watch a game in 3 or 4 years but I don't consider my interest any less than went I went every week. I just have other demands on my time and less will to throw £100 at each game. And I see a lot more of games on Sky.
Definitely not
Who knows or cares about football more ? Those who follow the team, read the sports page every day, see as much as they can but can't afford the prices, or the prawn cocktail brigade ?
I add Craig Bellamy to the Surprising Footballer category. He gives every impression of being a total arse, until you learn he runs a footballing charity for Sierra Leone, with at least half a million out of his own pocket so far and what's more is not just a figurehead but gets properly involved. Respect.
I kind of agree with you regards myself...
I don't class myself as a 'proper' fan in that I wouldn't go to many games even if I could get tickets. That's why I put 'armchair fan'.
However I think there are plenty of people who one could describe as true fans who for one reason or another don't go to the matches.
Are the true fans
The ones who put up with being ripped off more and more every season, who watch the players and management of their clubs take home vastly inflated pay packets and who shell out forty or fifty quid on a new shirt every season?
Who protest about foreign owners taking over their clubs, loading them down with debt and asset-stripping them, but then still turn up on the terraces week in, week out, tipping their own hard-earned cash into the profits of these carpet-baggers?
Who complain about the state of football these days, but will do nothing about it?
Not a rant, just saying that football is the way it is, because it is the way that it is.
No offence taken but I'm intrigued
How do you describe someone who has supported Arsenal since they were 6, subscribes to everything going (website, club membership x 3, magazine), has indoctrinated his two sons to love the club, has paid the extra for Sky Sports specifically to watch Arsenal in Europe, but who cannot justify from the family budget the £150 round trip (3 tickets & travel) to watch them live more than once or twice a season?
A...
big fan.
Share the pain, Wayne!
Comprehensive Spending Review?
Isn't there something offensive about Rooney's greed, especially this week? Should the government instigate a Greedy Footballer Levy?
Man Utd fans
My heart bleeds for you.
I don't recall too much outrage when young Wayne was 'encouraged' to leave his boyhood club for the bright lights of Trafford.
So now, I feel no pain whatsoever while Wayne (and his agent) milk ManYoo for every spare copper they've got under the pretence of 'ambition' or whatever the latest excuse is. He's doubled his salary, secured his future and increased your debt still further beyond the untenable levels they are already at. Leaving you with even less money to replace the ageing remnants of the 'golden generation'.
At least, when you sell him (in, I would guess, less than 12 months time) you'll pick up a decent transfer fee - and Everton will get a neat 25% of the profit, as well.
Win win, I think.
Is he still as overrated as a whole raft of ManYoo fans thought he was 24 hours ago, or is he again the golden boy of the Stretford End?
All that money spent on the 'Judas' banners - what a shame.
Apparently
the new contract includes a clause whereby Rooney receives a 100 quid bonus every time he manages to use the word "y'know" in an interview.
This is expected to result in a 50% increase in his wages.
Genius financial planning by his agents
Caught United in a pincer movement - the Glazers couldn't let it look as if they couldn't afford him especially after what's gone on at Liverpool, and United as a club couldn't let him go to City, the obvious destination. Result £250k for Wayne.
But in the current financial climate, getting that kind of money for kicking a leather bag of wind around is pretty near immoral isn't it?
£250k?
Just a bit of an exaggeration. Most reports say it's nearer to £150k/week, which is the original increased sum he was to be offered before the hoopla. Still an obscene amount of money, and a sickening way to negotiate, but let's not paint it worse.
Dear Mr Sir Alex Ferguson
I'll wander around Old Trafford looking shite and surly for less than half that amount per week, and I promise not to embarrass you by getting caught taking prossies up the wrong 'un. Please contact me here. My boots are dubbined in anticipation.
Comment from the always brilliant, Ian Holloway
As a lifelong Bristol Rovers fan
Ollie is a legend. Once he's finished this management nonsense he'll be back standing on the terrace with me and my mates at Fortress Mem cheering on The Gas.
Congratulations to employee W Rooney.
Well done Mr Rooney on your contract negotiations with your employer, an employer who at any time could have called your bluff and required you to seek employment elsewhere. If your customers decide to withdraw themselves from the consumption of the product you generate I imagine negotiations next time will be different. Until then, who was that girl I saw you with down the pub the other week?
In any other job
After being pretty unproductive for quite a while,and being the subject of scandalous stories in the paper. Could you imagine going into your bosses office and asking (in the middle of a recession) for double your wages? I think the answer would be along the lines of "Mind the door doesn't hit you on the arse on the way out!"
Your boss replies...
If your boss answers "Double? Ok", what is your reply going to be?