When you’re the self-proclaimed biggest club in the world, the spotlight always shines brightly whether times are good or bad.
When you’re the star player of that self-proclaimed biggest club in the world, you better know that only the squeakiest of clean images will evade the piercing eyes of the fabled English tabloid press.
Unfortunately for Manchester United and Wayne Rooney, those piercing eyes have zeroed in on their target and hit a bulls-eye, because there is nothing that the tabloids like more than a fat juicy story and Wayne has delivered the whole enchilada. It's 32 ounces of the best filet mignon money can buy. A sex scandal.
It seems the Red Devils' golden boy was leaving his pregnant wife Coleen at home while spending some quality time with call girl Jenny Thompson -- at the rate of 1200 british pounds per night. And this isn't the first time either, as Rooney was forgiven by his wife prior to their wedding for another tryst with a prostitute.
I think many of us were wondering what was up with the form of Wayne Rooney and now we know. He’s been captured playing away from home.
I’m sure United and Sir Alex Ferguson will circle the wagons and protect Wayne as much as possible from the fallout. But when the team goes on the road, that’s a different story because Rooney’s temper is legendary.
Who can doubt that the abuse he’s going to get from opposing fans is going to make the grief that fellow philandering England teammates John Terry and Ashley Cole received, seem like a tea party. It could be enough to make him snap.
Ferguson will no doubt point to Rooney’s disciplinary record over the last few seasons and say his man has changed, but then again didn’t Ferguson also say that married life had helped Wayne settle down?
I’m certainly not going to moralize on the situation but it does make me wonder why players, earning more money than most of us could only dream about, bother getting married.
It just seems to me that there is too much temptation to stray. After all, you’re young, in the best condition of your life, have raging hormones and are pampered to a degree that is staggering.
However, the problem is that no one, it seems, has the bottle to say no to you.
Now, leading a double life can be exhilarating and the timeline of events suggests that Wayne was in the form of his life on and off the pitch until the penny dropped.
Many pundits observed him to be unhappy on the pitch late in the season for United and then for England in South Africa. I think many of us thought that the ankle injury he suffered versus Bayern Munich was the catalyst for this mood swing. Now that’s up for debate.
It must be extremely hard to concentrate on football, as Terry demonstrated as his form fell apart, when his personal life became public information.
It also becomes complicated when you have portrayed your personal life to be perfect in pursuit of additional incomes and sponsorship deals - just ask Tiger Woods.
Wayne has had some ‘previous’ indiscretions with a grandma nicknamed ‘Auld Slapper’ in 2004. His wife Coleen forgave him then. But this time around she might not be as charitable.
It has been stated on many occasions that the best refuge for players in this situation is the pitch, but as I noted earlier I don’t think this holds true for Rooney. It will surely test him more than anything he has experienced in his young life.
The one thing in his favor, is that he has been in the spotlight his whole life. But this unfortunately is a different kind of light.
We have seen what the pressures of superstardom have done to previous United legends and I can’t help but think back to the first true star of the modern game, George Best.
Best won everything and had all the talent that Rooney displays but by the time he was 27 he had quit the Red Devils and was all but done playing top class football. "I’ve spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered," he famously said.
I’m hoping that Wayne Rooney doesn’t go down that same path because here is a talent that English football has not seen since Paul Gascoigne in his heyday.
Oh dear, is there a theme developing here?
