Rooney leaves Old Trafford for money?
The new contract offered by Manchester United to Wayne was only a £20,000-a-week improvement on his current basic salary!
Sir Alex Ferguson claimed that United had prepared “the best terms possible for any player in the country” but it is understood that the deal on the table was a long way short of the top earners at Manchester City.
The package was heavily centred around image rights payments with the basic salary believed to be a guaranteed £110,000-a-week, a relatively small increase on his current deal.
Rooney was offered a tax-free image rights deal of around £2 million as a top-up to his wages, which would have been split into two payments each year, and a profit-share on his shirt sales.
This would have taken his overall package comfortably beyond £150,000-a-week but a long way short of what is on offer at Manchester City.
The England striker and his advisers rejected the contract because they feel it did not represent his proper value in a market distorted by the riches of City’s billionaire Arab owner Sheikh Mansour.
It is believed Rooney and his advisers want £150,000-a-week after tax, which would effectively be £250,000-a-week gross in January and an incredible £300,000-a-week next April when the Government’s new 50 per cent tax bracket comes into force.
If the 24-year-old can negotiate a £15.6m-a-year deal it would make him comfortably the highest paid player in the history of the Premier League. Over five years, the length of contract that Rooney is looking for, it would be worth a staggering £78m.
Add on the cost of a transfer fee – and the bidding is likely to start at around £30m – the overall package could cost City, strong favourites to sign Rooney, more than £110m.
The current highest earner in the Premier League is City’s Yaya Toure, who earns £185,000-a-week, which rises to £221,000-a-week next April.
Court documents in February revealed that at United, Rooney earns £90,000-a-week wages, which is topped up by £760,000 every six months – or £1.52m per year – in image rights.
This is augmented by his long-standing sponsorships with sportswear giant Nike, which was worth £1m per year, and a four-year partnership with Coca-Cola, worth £600,000-a-year.
It is understood that Rooney has since signed an improved deal with Nike, believed to be worth nearly double his old agreement, and that the company are comfortable with the scandal that has surrounded the player in recent months.
One source said: “Rooney has always been far more a Nike player than an Everton or Manchester United player.”
City chief executive Garry Cook and football administrator Brian Marwood have strong links with Nike, which could be central to agreeing terms with the player.
The City hierarchy are keen to meet Uefa’s new Financial Fair Play rules by tying up a deal for Rooney in the January window, which would keep the transfer off the club’s 2011-12 balance sheet - the first season to be taken into account as the new regulations
are phased in by 2014-15.
United’s failure to meet Rooney’s demands is perhaps unsurprising given the club’s debts and the increasing squeeze on costs at Old Trafford.
The England international’s camp was hopeful that any relative shortfall in salary could have been met by an even bigger image rights deal.
However, United do not feel Rooney’s image is as valuable following his World Cup nightmare, pictures of him urinating in public and revelations that he cheated on his wife with a prostitute.
The player’s agent, Paul Stretford, met with Ferguson, United chief executive David Gill and lawyers from both parties at Old Trafford yesterday but failed to bring a resolution to talks aimed at agreeing the striker’s exit strategy.
Although Rooney is maintaining a relatively low profile, it is understood he went out for a meal with colleague Paul Scholes and boxer Ricky Hatton in the Lancashire village of Saddleworth on Tuesday night.
The sleepy settlement, home to Scholes, offered the anonymity that Rooney craved on the day that Ferguson delivered his seismic address to the world’s media declaring that the player was adamant he wanted to leave Old Trafford.
It also demonstrates that the forward still has allies in the United dressing room, even though his statement criticising the lack of investment by the club in world-class players came 24 hours later.
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