Ferguson reveals Rooney wage row, Balotelli interest

Wayne Rooney (left) fell out with Alex Ferguson after he refused to allow the striker to be paid more than him during a contract stand-off in 2010. Rooney vowed to leave United after accusing the club of a lack of ambition, only to perform a sudden U-turn and sign a new five-year deal.

AFP/LondonFormer Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has revealed that he refused to allow Wayne Rooney to be paid more than him during a contract stand-off with the striker in 2010. Rooney vowed to leave United after accusing the club of a lack of ambition, only to perform a sudden U-turn and sign a new five-year deal reportedly worth £180,000 ($279,000, 249,000 euros) a week. But Ferguson reveals in his new book, Leading, which released yesterday, that he engineered a deal of his own ensuring that no player could earn more than him, telling United’s owners the Glazer family and then-chief executive David Gill he “did not think it fair that Rooney should earn twice what I made”. “It was simple. We just agreed that no player should be paid more than me,” Ferguson writes in the book. Rooney fell out with Ferguson prior to the Scot’s retirement in 2013, but was appointed United captain by current manager Louis van Gaal last year. Ferguson says that Everton pulled out all the stops to prevent Rooney joining United in 2004, including an emotional phone-call from the player’s mother. “After we gave them our final offer, (Everton manager Bill) Kenwright got Rooney’s mother on the phone and she told me, ‘You are not going to steal my boy’,” writes Ferguson, who is now a United director. Other revelations in the book include the disclosure that Ferguson considered a move for wayward Italy striker Mario Balotelli in 2010, only to be dissuaded by his contacts in Italy. “In 2010, I briefly flirted with the idea of signing Mario Balotelli, the talented but controversial Italian striker,” Ferguson says. “I did my homework on him, speaking to a few Italian contacts, but the feedback I got confirmed it was too big a risk.” Balotelli subsequently joined Manchester City from Inter Milan, returning to Italy for a second spell at AC Milan this year following a disappointing season with Liverpool. Ferguson hits out at Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy’s handling of Dimitar Berbatov’s move to United in 2008, describing the experience as “more painful than my hip replacement”. He also has choice words for Mino Raiola, the agent of French midfielder Paul Pogba, who left United for Juventus in 2012 and has since become one of the world’s most coveted players. The 73-year-old Scot defends the quality of the squad that his successor David Moyes inherited in 2013, saying criticism of United’s players made it sound like “I had left 11 corpses on the steps of a funeral”. Moyes, meanwhile, was only approached after United had sounded out Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Jurgen Klopp and Van Gaal. Moyes was sacked after 10 months at United but Ferguson defended his fellow Scot’s record prior to joining the club. “We chose David Moyes. He had been consistent in his job at Everton, had a good spell there—11 years and showed appetite. Unfortunately, somehow it didn’t work out for David. The process was perfect. It was a good process,” Ferguson said. Moyes’ reign lasted less than a year but Ferguson has backed  Van Gaal to succeed, citing the Dutchman’s record. “Louis has got a great background with Bayern Munich and Barcelona. He’s got the pedigree,” Ferguson told Sky Sports. “He’s got the experience. He knows how to handle these things.”