By Mark Baber
March 16 – The release of a video clip by The Sun newspaper, showing England and Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney apparently knocked out whilst engaged in a boxing match with former team-mate Phil Bardsley, is largely being treated as a private matter and a hook for various one-liners.
The clip, which was apparently shot on a mobile phone in Wayne Rooney’s kitchen on February 22, shows Rooney and Bardsley, both wearing boxing gloves, engaged in a sparring match which ends with a left jab from Bardsley which floors Rooney, who is lying prostrate on the tiled floor as the video cuts off.
The clip has been shared among Rooney’s friends over the last few days. Whilst its release on YouTube, where it has garnered 2.34 million impressions, will not do a lot for Rooney’s reputation as a responsible, reliable and mature role-model, any damage to the player’s career is likely to be minimal and the attempts at damage limitation have been effective, not least thanks to Rooney scoring against Tottenham, allowing him to use his goal celebration to make light of the matter.
Rooney’s goal celebration involved some mock boxing and then a falling backwards as if hit by a knockout blow and in his post-match interview the striker responded to questions saying: “That’s the world we live in today. It was a few mates in a private house, which has somehow managed to go front page of a national newspaper… it was me and a few friends joking about.”
Rooney was also keen to emphasise the furore had not affected his game. “I’ve been focused on the game, I think it’s more interesting for other people rather than myself. You’ve seen I’ve done a professional job, got on with the game.”
The wife of Phil Bardsley used Twitter to suggest the video had been edited to exclude Rooney “jumping up and laughing with Phil.”
Whilst one newspaper suggested that Rooney perhaps “does not grasp the scope of his responsibilities as United and England skipper,” and that his employers may not be too happy about him engaging in an (obviously dangerous) boxing match in a kitchen, Gary Lineker probably reflected the more general reaction, suggesting the incident showed the striker was better at offence than defence.
Less amused was Manchester United manager Luis van Gaal, who refused to answer questions on the matter, saying: “What is this world, twisted? I don’t want to answer questions about such things.”
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