Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Wayne Rooney, The Money, Torres and Man U. Lack of Success and Liverpool.

Football trends get twistier and trickier as legal, labour and money issues get Incorporated into the field, and then when the politicians get their nose in there, FIFA shout foul. Talking of money and FIFA, a Nigerian member and another colleague are under fire for saying they will sell votes to World Cup bidding nations. While it is necessary for FIFA to do something about this, I think someone is either lying or it was a bad joke.

You will remember the European labour rules that turned one unknown player to a hero about a decade earlier in a case that brought about the now famous Bosnian rule. Not so long back, another player, Andy Webster had issues with his move to Stoke City which eventual brought about the Webster ruling. This allows players to buy out the last year of their contracts for the price of their wages plus a nominal compensation fee. Barring wage demands, this makes Wayne Rooney basically affordable to anyone in football, including South Africa. Mamelodi Sundowns can afford him.

That said, Manchester United are not that stupid to wait for that to happen, hence that officialises him in the market. It will be a case of who is bidding. Eurosport reminds us that Rooney signed his current in November 2006, meaning that he has served more than the minimum three-year 'protected period' during which United could have blocked a deal. Mr Manchester United refused a £150,000 a week contract. If you think that is cool money, you are right because you don't have that in your bank balance. Manchester City will pay him £500 000 per week if they get their way. So, Rooney is not a squirrel to thrive on nuts, or indeed peanuts from Man U.

Sir Alex Ferguson makes business sense in any case. The under productive Rooney may not be worth an extra penny. The little they were trying to entice him with may as well go to another unproductive Spanish striker called Fernando Torres. To me, it will be charity work to save Liverpool from their financial troubles, not that Man U are good themselves, but in this world we share. So, Sir Alex will sure make a £50 million bid to bring the injury-prone Spaniard to United.

Liverpool's form has been very bad and one thing they need to do is give Torres a break. He needs to shake off the bad world cup tag and get his form back. Of course he has injury worries to deal with but then, that name alone is worth the money if you ever loved the man. If anyone lost Rooney, very few would sound worthy replacements and Sir Alex is not far off the mark in marketing terms. As for pound for pound player, Man U were better off doing a deal with Real Madrid and get Karim Benzema. Sir Alex likes him and has tried him before. The deal here will be to get Rooney to Chelsea and then Didier Drogba to Jose Mourinho. Drogba is no more enjoying his Chelsea stay and The Special one has a special relationship with the Ivorian. That is far fetched, but the only way Rooney will not play for City.

As for The Reds, they expressed interest in a £6m move for Alexander Kerzhakov, a Russian striker. They will need the free scoring St Petersburg scorer to lift themselves up from the relegation zone, but first things first. Roy Hodgson must put his balls in the vise and leave his mentally fragile and tactically weary senior players for the untested rookies to pull out one result and then Liverpool will be on their way up. Otherwise, they will be fighting losing battles, week in and week out.

Would Wayne Rooney fit the Arsenal set-up if they could afford his wages because he comes so cheap? Or he could team up with Torres for the Gunners for a partnership. Tell us.  

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