18. Liverpool

Aha.

Wayne Rooney declares his intention to walk out on Manchester United

• Striker falls out with Ferguson and could leave in January
• Manchester City and Real Madrid possible destinations
By Daniel Taylor

Wayne Rooney has thrown Manchester United's season into a state of turmoil after informing the club he has no plans to sign another contract and intends to find new employers. Rooney's decision is based on serious differences with Sir Alex Ferguson, the Guardian understands, and will be a devastating blow to the supporters who have come to regard him as a talismanic figure in this troubled era under Malcolm Glazer's ownership.

United may have no option now but to sell the England striker, possibly in the January transfer window, rather than risk his transfer valuation dramatically lowering now that he is only 20 months away from becoming a free agent.

Rooney has always said he has no desire to play abroad and would like to remain in Manchester for the rest of his career, but his mindset has changed and his availability will inevitably attract interest from major forces such as Real Madrid and Barcelona. Manchester City may feel they have an outside chance of capitalising on what has gone wrong for him at Old Trafford, although their chances are undermined by the fact they already have a huge task ahead of them bringing down their wages to prevent Uefa banning them from European competitions under financial fair-play rules.

The full details are not yet clear but the underlying fact is that Rooney now feels that his working relationship with Ferguson has suffered potentially irreparable damage in the fall-out from tabloid allegations about the striker's private life, coinciding with a dramatic loss of form and a growing sense that the most successful manager in the business has taken a hard-line approach with his player.

Rooney has lost his place in the team, with Ferguson citing a supposed ankle injury, and the 24-year-old felt sufficiently emboldened last week to contradict his manager's version of events and make it clear he has not missed a single training session – and was, in essence, dropped for other reasons.

What has not been established is whether these events have coincided with a disagreement about the amount of money he expected to earn in a new contract. United had been willing to make him the highest earner at the club, with a weekly salary of £150,000, and the club's chief executive, David Gill, had stated several times earlier in the year that the matter would be resolved as soon as Rooney was back from the World Cup.

That now appears to have backfired on Gill, with the message already conveyed to senior figures at Old Trafford that Rooney is now counting down his days at the club. There remains a suspicion it might be a part of the negotiating process, but the Guardian has been informed that, for now at least, Rooney's mind is made up and that he and his family are already contemplating where next to take his career.

If that remains the case, it threatens to be an even more devastating blow to the club than Cristiano Ronaldo's £80m transfer to Real Madrid last year given that it was widely known the Portuguese would eventually move to the Bernabéu. Rooney has always given the opposite impression, immersing himself in the fabric of the club, and now appears to be on the brink of being one of the few players to leave against their wishes. Ferguson has moved on some great footballers, including Ruud van Nistelrooy and David Beckham, but always prides himself on players not being sold unless he says so; in this case it seems clear that the decision was made by Rooney first.

With United desperately trying to keep the matter in-house, Ferguson's views on the subject are not clear, other than he is known to be alarmed and angry about the headlines that Rooney has attracted because of his alleged relationship with a prostitute, Jennifer Thompson and mostly his faltering performances on the pitch. Some United fans will be angry that Rooney seems to have portrayed himself as the victim when it could be argued that he has brought these troubles on himself, but a rift has clearly developed between player and manager.

Rooney has been in the worst form of his professional life for the last seven months, without a goal in open play since the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich in March. Most worryingly, he is showing few signs of emerging from his current slump. Nonetheless, he remains a hero to the United support and was regarded as the player who would help to ensure continuity and success once Ferguson, plus the likes of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, had retired.

Who are the contenders to sign football’s red-hot property?

Real Madrid
Spain is the likeliest destination and Rooney would relish being reunited with Cristiano Ronaldo at the Santiago Bernabéu. Jose Mourinho has spoken of his admiration of the United forward and United have happily traded with Real in the past. Real have plenty of players who could be part of the deal.
Prospects: 4/5

Barcelona
Rooney has talked of his respect for Lionel Messi. They would be a devast-ating double act. Don’t underestimate the Nike factor — Rooney is a key Nike player and Barca are a Nike-sponsored superpower. Player exchange would appeal to United who would require a stellar name in Rooney’s place.
Prospects: 4/5

Manchester City
No club can match the spending power of Sheikh Mansour, but City must address their spending and wage structure to meet Uefa regulations. Adding Rooney’s wages would lead to half a squad knocking on Roberto Mancini’s door. Rooney in light blue would be staggering.
Prospects: 3/5

Chelsea
The outsiders. Roman Abramovich has withdrawn from the top end of the transfer market and United’s asking price could be prohibitive. With Rooney’s wife, Coleen, pursuing a TV career, London would be a positive and she might just have a big say in where the Rooneys go next.
Prospects: 2/5

Merseyside
Forget the red half of Merseyside, despite the new ownership at Anfield. That move will never happen. Everton lack the financial muscle to compete, but there is an appetite on both sides for Rooney to end his career back where it all started. Don’t rule out an homecoming in five or six years.
Prospects: 0/5

Might be a good idea to move out in january and let the team play without over relying on the lad.

In a different site, it is reported that SAF asked Roo not to play for England in the Montenegro game. But Roo defied SAF and played the full-90 minutes thereby humiliating him.

The rift is for real. Two important man-u men are not talking to each other.

For the team, its better that SAF wins this ego-battle than Rooney. Unless Glazer family is ready to bring in Mourinho to replace SAF.

Ferguson is keen to show Rooney just who is in the driving seat but this time he has no ordinary passenger

Ferguson and David Gill have dealt ruthlessly and, at times, brilliantly in player trading. They have carted some very famous players to the exit at just the right time - By Sam Wallace

There is no feud so bitter and no parting so final like those between Sir Alex Ferguson and the great Manchester United players he has excommunicated over the years. And yet of all those spectacular rows that live on in the memory, there is potentially none like the one brewing between the United manager and Wayne Rooney.

This one is different to all those fall-outs because they signified a victory for United and Ferguson over the importance of any one individual. Rooney has his problems but he is certainly not washed up or fatally distracted by celebrity. He is refusing to sign a new contract because he recognises the decline at United that has crept up over the last year.

Rooney does not want to commit his future to the club because, it is understood, he does not believe that they are investing in new players to replace the old guard of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville. The new contract offered to him thus far is not comparable to the top earners at Manchester City or what he could earn if he left as a free agent when his current deal expires in June 2012. And if Rooney will not sign a new contract then it follows that United will have to sell if they are not to lose him for nothing.

Rooney is applying a very harsh logic to United's situation and one which some of their fans will regard as unpardonable. But his refusal to sign a new contract is based upon the blunt realities of football. He wants more money and greater ambition than the club can offer him. It is the clearest signal yet, after more than five years under the Glazer family's ownership, that United are in decline.

Of course, there are other factors too which include the meltdown in Rooney's private life that followed the revelation that he had used a prostitute and all the scrutiny that has brought upon him. That has not helped his relationship with Ferguson but even at his ungovernable worst, Rooney remained a player for whom it was worth accepting the problems in return for what he gave on the pitch.

Essentially Rooney has asked himself a version of the question that Ferguson has asked hundreds of times over 24 years at United: is this player still an asset to my club? Rooney is the first significant player of Ferguson's reign – aside from Cristiano Ronaldo, who was a very different case – who is asking: is being at this club still advantageous to me?

Over the last 17 years of consistent success at Old Trafford it is inconceivable that a player of Rooney's status would have answered that question any other way than in the affirmative. But times are changing for United.

This is a club that carries a debt of £521.7m and whose owners owe a further £225m on their acquisition. In their financial results published earlier this month United conspired to make a loss of £83m despite an operating profit of £100m with money eaten up by interest payments and the cost of re-financing their debt.

The strain that this has placed on United's historically powerful position in the transfer market has consistently been played down by Ferguson, who has long argued that the money is there if he requires it. From his stance on his new contract it seems there is at least one person who does not believe that – and that is Rooney himself.

As with all Ferguson's biggest fall-outs with players, this cannot stay secret forever. When last week Rooney public debunked Ferguson's claims that he had been injured he was trying to tell us something important. When the striker was dropped for Saturday's game against West Bromwich Albion it was clear the situation had suddenly become much more serious.

In one of his most succinct summaries of what it requires to keep the great beast that is United moving relentlessly forward, Ferguson once likened his club to a bus that never stops travelling. "We're going on to the next stop," Ferguson said 11 years ago. "If somebody gets left behind then that's their own fault."

What Ferguson really meant when he said that the bus always moves on was that he always moves on. Ferguson decides who stays and who goes. Ferguson decides who is in favour and who is out of favour. But if Rooney leaves the club because they cannot match his ambition then it will not be him who is left at the bus stop, but Ferguson.

Over the years Ferguson and United's chief executive David Gill have dealt ruthlessly, and at times brilliantly, in trading players. But football has changed around them. Manchester City, and to a lesser extent Chelsea, are backed by the personal fortunes of very rich men with whom United would struggle to compete at the best of times.

Unfortunately for United this is not the best of times for them financially, in fact it is not even close. In an era when the most profitable football club in Britain had to be at their cash-generating best to compete with the sheikhs and oligarchs ranged against them, United are losing £40m a year in interest payments on the Glazer debt.

It is possible that Rooney could yet be persuaded. Ferguson and Gill could talk him round and promise that his future is best served at a club that can still compete. But the power dynamics at the heart of United are changing. The debt is still there. The bus is revving. But who's driving?

Rooney has won the Champions League, FA Cup and EPL with Man Utd so i don't think he would be motivated by talk of trophies at Old Trafford. There are several clubs who are willing to pay him double or more what he currently earns at Old Trafford and one of these clubs is Man City.

Surely this is the beginning of the end for Rooney's stay at Man Utd though I don't think he'll leave in January.

He has already declared he has no plans to sign another contract and intends to find new employers.

When things get these thick, one looks for consolation. And in this instance the consolation is that rooney is not playing that well at the moment. So..............

Hey bro, dont get a hernia....ManU isnt Safcon...ama you also own shares there? hahahahhahahahahaha

You, Glazers and MJ

LOL

Mcreggae,

I consider BBC and Sky sports credible enough....but that's not the isue now.It's how the entire team reacts in what is turning out to be a crisis.I would actually put the blame on Rooney.Despite having a fantastic run last season (Probably due to "love" bliss..lol),he hasn't grown any much from the scoundrel of Everton days.I would guarantee that unlike CR7,he is headed for self destruction.