Reasons to celebrate?

Wayne Rooney’s decision to stay at Manchester United will no doubt have some fans singing his name, but why the blind loyalty?

I think by now that the world and his wife have weighed in on the Wayne Rooney saga. Of his dramatic u-turn from a position of wanting to leave Old Trafford at all costs to one where he now sits on a new five year contract on a weekly wage reported to be hovering around the £200,000 mark.

The exact chain of events, the accusations and counter accusations, you probably already know all of that so I’m not going to go into too much detail there. Was he justified in doing what he did? Should Manchester United be paying one of their players such a vast sum of money in a time when hundreds of thousands look set to lose their jobs? I’m going to try not to moralise, but the one thing I’ve kept thinking over and over again is just what complete mugs the whole sorry, sordid saga has taken Manchester United fans, and indeed football fans in general for.

I was listening to the views of some of fleet streets ‘finest’ on Sky Sports land of half eaten croissants and glasses of orange juice - the Sunday Supplement this week and what struck me was seemingly how far they found Rooney’s actions completely justifiable. It was their view that Rooney was very much in the right to go to his manager, go to the Chief executive go to the owners and voice his concern about the future competitiveness and direction of the club. If that was in fact his sole aim then I don’t think I disagree. What they failed to acknowledge however was that in addition to seemingly coming out with some assurances over how the playing staff would be strengthened in the future, Rooney also managed to come out with around a £70,000 a week pay increase.

In general in life, and maybe I’ve just been working in the wrong places, if you go into a meeting with your employers with concerns, and perhaps with some unhappiness it’s unlikely to end with an unprompted, and vastly significant raise in your wages. These things don’t generally tend to happen...unless you go in and actually ask for that pay rise, make demands and threaten repercussions if it doesn’t happen; repercussions such as taking your skills elsewhere. Surely, and obviously I wasn’t there, this must be how meetings between Rooney, his advisers and the club went.

Should we be appalled by this, should we see this as morally reprehensible? Should we see Rooney as a selfish and greedy? That’s not for me to say, we all have a different moral compass. As Martin Samuel of the Daily Mail said, If Manchester United a publically limited company is prepared to pay that to one of their employees, even if he was the one asking for it then that’s their business. If we all see our aim in life as being to make as much money as you can to create the best possible life for you and your family then Rooney has achieved something that many of us would love to; in theory he is making fantastic money to do a job he loves. Should we begrudge him that?

As I say, the rights or wrongs of Rooney’s attempts to lever himself (and achieve) a vast increase in his earnings is not really what I’m trying to discuss, although obviously it’s linked, it’s more the way that fans loyalty and support has been abused and the ways in general that fans get trampled all over by players, owners and those who control the game over and over again. In that respect I’m really anxious to see how Manchester United fans are reacting and indeed will react, when Rooney first takes to the field once again.

For if I was a Manchester United fan I’m not sure I would be celebrating the news about their number 10 as an unmitigated triumph. Sure, I can understand how many will have happy emotions because their (well, maybe not on current form) star player is staying at the club and I also understand how many, who look at Rooney as their favourite player will also be relieved. However, deep down, are they that blinkered that after this whole affair they welcome Rooney back with open arms, ready to show him their unrequited love?

In my eyes here is a guy who has openly taken them for a ride and in a way abused their loyalty. As James Lawton wrote in an excellent piece in the Independent;
‘Wayne Rooney is bigger than United now despite the fact that he has behaved without the slightest deference to his own or the club's reputation.

In some quarters there has been the parrot cry that he has merely been exercising the birthright of anyone born into a free society. In the crudest terms this is correct, but what kind of free society are we talking about when Rooney and his agent can, in effect, say, 'These are our terms and so what can you do for us today because the past simply doesn't matter?’

Football fans are forever crying out that their views are discarded their opinions stamped on, but really, how many times do we help ourselves? For I, am as guilty as anyone. Blind loyalty, unremitting support, following to the bitter end without questioning; within football these things are seen as qualities to admire. Critical thoughts about your own team are to be discouraged. Football fans are often like victims of domestic abuse or someone in a violent relationship. No matter how much pain and humiliation is doled out to us by ‘our’ team, players, managers, owners, we just come back for more, for second helpings.

Perhaps I’m taking this all too seriously, to be honest most fans at Manchester United, and at any club don’t really care what goes on, as long as they get to cheer on their heroes. They get to see their favourite team and their favourite players, but I can’t help thinking of the piece my esteemed colleague Mr. James Platt wrote on Marlon King’s arrival at Coventry. As a fan, if someone pitches up at your club who has a dubious track record, who has proven unpleasant criminal offences to his name, is it your duty as a football fan to just suck it up and start cheering him on? Do people care about what the player may have done in the past, or indeed do fans care what those people might have done to other fans?

For example, say Rooney had orchestrated a move away from Old Trafford and he’d pitched up just down the road at Manchester City. How many fans of the club from the City of Manchester Stadium would have said to themselves; “hang on, he’s treated other fans, people like you and me, people who work hard for a living who have to pay out vast sums to watch a bunch of millionaires, like we’re worthless, abusing the loyalty and admiration they have shown, who’s to say he won’t do the same to us?” What’s more likely is that the majority would have said; “Yes we have Wayne Rooney! Take that Man Utd; we’re the new force in this town!”

It happens all the time, when a player/manager/owner so emphatically turns their back on people who invested a lot in them then the club they’re going to embraces them with open arms. There’s no thought of any comradeship or camaraderie. Football fans are treated like dirt and abused, over and over again, and yet, there is no solidarity, no banding together to protect the majority, give them a voice. Instead petty rivalries, short sightedness and ignorance clouds everything. The chance to take the piss out of someone else and laugh at their situation or the chance to see another mercenary with a sweet left foot in your team’s colours takes over.

When Rooney scores his next goal for Manchester United, he will no doubt have 76,000 chanting his name as if nothing ever happened. Fans will have been taken for a ride once again and seemingly loved every second of it. And we wonder why our opinions count for nothing. Why should anyone else be looking out for our interests if we can’t even look out for our own?