D.C. United captain Wayne Rooney responded Wednesday to a story that recently appeared in a British tabloid that featured photos of the English striker enjoying the Vancouver nightlife and talking to a woman outside a hotel elevator after a match this month.
“The Sun this week ran a front-page story making it look like I took a girl back to my team hotel,” Rooney said in the statement. “They know that it’s not true and that I did not. They are using mine and my family’s name to sell papers. Nothing happened between me and any girl on that night in Vancouver. I did not enter the lift alone with the girl pictured in the hotel foyer."
In breaking his silence about the story, Rooney, who declined interviews Tuesday through a team spokesman, said the woman pictured with him was “simply one of many who innocently asked for autographs and pictures” after United’s 1-0 loss to Vancouver on Aug. 17.
“The photographs published by The Sun were taken by a freelance photographer who followed me and my team mates to take long range shots, without our knowledge or permission,” Rooney wrote. “The pictures sold to the newspaper were selected and edited to create a sensational and completely untrue story about me. This whole story was a smear against me. It is damaging to my family and not something I am prepared to put up with.”
The Sun - Enough is enough pic.twitter.com/lCICTdwfwt
— Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) August 28, 2019
During the 13 years he played for Manchester United, Rooney was a frequent target of scrutiny by the British tabloids. Being able to go places in Washington with Coleen and their four sons without worrying about paparazzi was one of the things Rooney has said he has enjoyed since signing with D.C. United last year.
“Just to go out with my children here is a lot different than going out with them back home,” Rooney, who married Coleen in 2008, said on the “Men in Blazers” podcast last October. “… At home, at times you’re looking over your shoulder, you’re wondering who’s watching you, who’s filming you. Here it’s a little bit more chilled out."
But Coleen missed living in England, and her desire to return there full time contributed to Wayne’s decision this month to leave United at the end of the season and join the English second-tier Derby County as a player-assistant coach.
It has been a rough stretch for Rooney and United, losers of three straight, on and off the pitch. Rooney, who leads the club in goals (11) and assists (seven), served a mandatory one-game suspension last Saturday at Philadelphia for a red card he received in the team’s previous match against the New York Red Bulls. The league’s disciplinary committee extended Rooney’s suspension by an additional match because it involved a blow to the head, meaning Rooney will miss Saturday’s game at Montreal.
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