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Wayne’s world: petulant, selfish and arrogant
Neil Clark: To pull this stunt in a week when half a million people face losing their jobs is obscene
The 1992 film Wayne's World featured a heavy metal enthusiast who broadcasts shows from the basement of his parent's house. The 2010 version is not so endearing. It features an arrogant, loutish and overpaid footballer who threatens to leave the club which has made him into a world star - until they agree to sign him up to a new, improved five-year contract.
Wayne Rooney's behaviour this past week would have been disgusting at the best of times, but coming in a week when half a million Britons face losing their jobs, as the government announces the biggest cuts in public spending since the Second World War, it is positively obscene.
We must all tighten our belts, we are told by Chancellor Osborne, and learn to live within our means. But for Wayne Rooney, £90,000 a week - a sum the average Briton takes around four years to earn - is insufficient.
And how does he have the temerity to pull a stunt like this when his own play has been so clearly below-par of late?
In his statement released on Wednesday, explaining why he was leaving the club, Rooney effectively said that the current Manchester United team was not good enough for him.
That's right - United are not good enough for a player who has scored only one goal in open play since April and who was a total embarrassment when playing for England in this summer's World Cup.
A large part of the reason why Manchester United are not hitting the heights this season is Rooney's own poor form: the man is a shadow of the player who once terrified opposing defences with his power and skill.
But self-criticism has never been our Wayne's strong point.
Think back to South Africa when England were booed off the field after being held to an abject 0-0 draw by Algeria. Instead of issuing a mea culpa for his poor performance and apologising to fans who had paid thousands of pounds to support the team, Rooney turned aggressively to the TV camera and said: "Nice to see your home fans boo you - that's loyal supporters." The comment was angrily received by England fans and Rooney was forced into making an apology.
This time, he may not be so lucky.
For far too long football supporters have indulged the petulant multi-millionaire stars who take them for granted. It's time they got angrier. Not by turning up to players' homes wearing balaclavas, as occurred on Thursday night outside Rooney's Cheshire mansion, but by refusing to pay the exorbitant season ticket prices which subsidise footballers' outrageous earnings, or withdrawing their subscriptions to satellite TV stations which broadcast Premier League games.
Of course, Rooney is a product of a crass, money-obsessed and ultra-competitive society, one in which we are encouraged to do all we can to increase our "market value".
Every society gets the footballers it deserves: the far less commercial 1950s produced footballers such as 'Gentleman' Jimmy Dickinson, Jackie Milburn and Tom Finney - mild-mannered, modest and fundamentally decent 'one club' men for whom playing the game was far more important than material rewards. In the dumbed-down, turbo-capitalist Britain of the early 21st century we get Wayne Rooney.
But even allowing for this drop in standards, Rooney's behaviour has been remarkably selfish. I hope he pays for it. ·
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Incredibly greedy, selfish and stupid Rooney may be but to hold his actions up as obscene in the face of ordinary people facing cuts is way off the mark and mises a vital point.
It is not Rooney, nor any other Premier League footballer who is cutting jobs, slashing benefits and setting out to destroy public services.
In the great grand scheme of things what Rooney or any other footballer is earning has no impact on the lives of people. The poor will be poor whether Rooney earns 10 pence a week or 10 billion a week!
Using the cuts to bash footballers is a nice way for the Tory media to deflect public anger on to the small number of working class people who have had the foresight to use their talents to make a good life for themselves.
The message is "Whilst you are worrying about losing your job and not being able to pay your bills these overpaid pampered premaddonas are swanning around living the high life"
Sorry but the people living the high life who we should be really angry about are the bankers, bosses and corpeate fat cats who created the mess we are in which has lead to these savage cuts in the first place.
Footballers are innocent as far as I'm concerned.
Incredibly greedy, selfish and stupid Rooney may be but to hold his actions up as obscene in the face of ordinary people facing cuts is way off the mark and mises a vital point.
It is not Rooney, nor any other Premier League footballer who is cutting jobs, slashing benefits and setting out to destroy public services.
In the great grand scheme of things what Rooney or any other footballer is earning has no impact on the lives of people. The poor will be poor whether Rooney earns 10 pence a week or 10 billion a week!
Using the cuts to bash footballers is a nice way for the Tory media to deflect public anger on to the small number of working class people who have had the foresight to use their talents to make a good life for themselves.
The message is "Whilst you are worrying about losing your job and not being able to pay your bills these overpaid pampered premaddonas are swanning around living the high life"
Sorry but the people living the high life who we should be really angry about are the bankers, bosses and corpeate fat cats who created the mess we are in which has lead to these savage cuts in the first place.
Footballers are innocent as far as I'm concerned.
But friends, let us haste not to moralise 'gainst the canny Roonster. Let us instead perform a very short and easily followed thought experiment. Let us suppose that the television rights and advertising and merchandising deals for ManU double overnight - because they are so super and the other teams are not...would not then ALL the players reasonably expect a pay rise? Say, maybe double...well, about double then? And let us further say that one of the players realises that he can test his worth by asking for yet more...because he is the most super of all, and now at the peak of his powers, and other clubs all over the world would just love to take him away and pay him what he commands in the exalted realms of footie stardom, despite the politics of envy and spite peddled by little-minded no-talents the world over? Should he not chance his arm? Or leg? After all, if one of the little-minds could get a wage rise by throwing a hissy-fit (aren't there a lot of hypens in this thought-experiment?), would they not hissy-fit themselves to higher pay too, because the market is willing to bear what they are worth? But of course, the hissy-fit might not work, so they would wuss out, as if the boss calls their bluff, they might just get canned, and they have not got the guts to do it...but the Roonster has, so it proves he has guts and talent! Yippee! Don't I make free market economics so fun you guys?! And do watch more South Park, they know more economics and explain it even better than me...well, almost.
Comparing Wayne with Americans is in bad taste. Wikileaks today... Also he pays huge amounts in tax. How he spends the residual is his own business but lest stay out of killing the enterprise spirit.
He may need to finance some more expensive women who can keep their mouths shut.
If Rooney hadn't been born with a gift, I doubt he would have ever had a job.
Wayne is a product of those who created him into a football 'star'. Huge ego, avarice, rude and insolent are words that come to mind when I think of Rooney. A bit of a bully with a raging bull complex. He'd be perfect playing in America.