Wayne Mark Rooney

* Rooney premiered nationally in 2002, as 16-year-old substitute for Everton; within minutes, scored a winning goal against Arsenal
* BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year (2002)
* Became England's youngest ever professional player (at 17 years, 111 days) in February 2003 when he came on as a substitute against Australia at Upton Park
* Became the European Championships' youngest ever goalscorer when he scored against Switzerland in Coimbra; went on to score two more against Croatia to become England's highest goalscorer at the tournament

* Youngest player to have scored for his country (age 17) in September 2003 against Macedonia
* On average, runs about 11-12 km (6.5-7.5 mi) per match
* Was 18 when he joined Manchester United (2004)
* Named PFA Young Player of the Year (2005)
* Received Manchester United's Man of the Match award after his performance in the Carling Cup final (2006)
* A pub in Devon changed its name in Rooney's honor; The Half Moon in Paignton is now known as The Half Roon.
* Broke a metatarsal bone during 2005-2006 season; his place in World Cup squad is uncertain.

* Born: 24 October 1985
* Birthplace: Liverpool, England
* Best Known As: Young superstar forward for Manchester United, 2004-present

Wayne Rooney was 16 years old when he scored his first goal in England's Premiership league on 19 October 2002. The next year he became the youngest ever to play for the English national team, debuting against Australia in February of 2003. Suddenly Rooney was marked as the future of English soccer, much as Michael Owen had been a few years earlier. Rooney plays striker and is known for his goal-scoring instincts, his passing touch and his raw speed. He first played professionally for Everton from 2003-04 before transferring to the high-powered Manchester United club in 2004. He was the subject of intense fan interest before the 2006 World Cup, when he was selected for the English squad despite having fractured a bone in his foot in April, only a few weeks before the Cup began. Rooney played in the Cup but was red-carded in England's quarterfinal loss to Portugal.

Rooney is sometimes called "Roonaldo," a wry comparison to Brazilian star Ronaldo.

Wayne Mark Rooney (born 24 October 1985) is an English footballer who currently plays as a striker for English Premier League club Manchester United and the England national team.

Rooney began his career with Everton, joining their youth team at age ten and rising through the ranks. He made his professional debut in 2002 and his first goal made him the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history at the time. He quickly became part of Everton's first team, spending two seasons at the Merseyside club. Before the start of the 2004–05 season, he moved to Manchester United for £25.6 million and became a key member of the first team. Since then, he has won the Premier League twice, the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League and also the Football League Cup.

Rooney made his England debut in 2003 and at Euro 2004 he briefly became the competition's youngest goalscorer. He is frequently picked for the England squad and also featured in the 2006 World Cup.

Early life

Born on 24 October 1985 in Croxteth, Liverpool, Merseyside, Rooney is the first child of Thomas Wayne and Jeanette Marie Rooney (née Morrey). He was raised in Croxteth with younger brothers Graeme and John, and all three attended De La Salle School. Wayne grew up supporting local club Everton, and his childhood hero was Duncan Ferguson.

Club career

Everton

After excelling for Liverpool Schoolboys and Dynamo Brownwings, Everton signed Rooney on schoolboy terms at the age of ten. He was part of the youth squad, and after scoring in an FA Youth Cup match, he revealed a T-shirt under his jersey that read, "Once a Blue, always a Blue." Since he was underage at the time and therefore ineligible for a professional contract, he was playing for £80 a week and living with his family on one of the country's council estates.

On 19 October 2002, five days before his seventeenth birthday, Rooney scored a match-winning goal against reigning league champions Arsenal; in addition to ending Arsenal's thirty-match unbeaten run, it made Rooney the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history, a record that has since been surpassed twice by James Milner and currently James Vaughan. He was named BBC Sports' 2002-03 Young Personality of the Year.

At the end of the 2003-04 season, Rooney, citing Everton's inability to challenge for European competition, requested a transfer that Everton refused to oblige if the transfer fee was less than £50 million. A three-year, £12,000-a-week contract offer from the club was snubbed by Rooney's agent in August 2004, leaving Manchester United and Newcastle United F.C. to compete for his signature. The Times reported that Newcastle were close to signing Rooney for £18.5 million, as confirmed by Rooney's agent, but Manchester United ultimately won the bidding war and Rooney signed at the end of the month after a £25.6 million deal with Everton was reached. It marked the most expensive transfer for a teenaged player ever, at the time of the signing.

On 1 September 2006, Everton manager David Moyes sued Rooney for libel after the tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail published excerpts from Rooney's 2006 autobiography that accused the coach of leaking Rooney's reasons for leaving the club to the press. The case was settled out of court for £500,000 on 3 June 2008, and Rooney apologized to Moyes for "false claims" he had made in the book regarding the matter.

Manchester United

Rooney made his United debut on 28 September 2004 in a 6-2 Champions League group stage win over Fenerbahçe, scoring a hat-trick along with an assist. One year later, he was sent off for dissent in a goalless Champions League group draw with Villarreal in Spain on 14 September 2005, after he sarcastically applauded referee Kim Milton Nielsen when he was booked for a foul. His first trophy with United came in the 2006 League Cup, and he was also named man of the match after scoring twice in United's 4-0 win over Wigan Athletic in the final.

Rooney was sent off in an Amsterdam Tournament match against Porto on 4 August 2006 after hitting Porto defender Pepe with an elbow. He was punished with a three-match ban by the FA, following their receipt of a 23-page report from referee Ruud Bossen that explained his decision. Rooney wrote a letter of protest to the FA, citing the lack of punishment handed down to other players who were sent off in friendlies. He also threatened to withdraw the FA's permission to use his image rights if they did not revoke the ban, but the FA had no power to make such a decision.

During the first half of the 2006–07 season, Rooney ended a ten-game scoreless streak with a hat-trick against Bolton Wanderers, and he signed a two-year contract extension the next month that tied him to United until 2012. By the end of April, a combination of two goals in an 8-3 aggregate quarter-final win over Roma and two more in a 3-2 semifinal first leg victory over Milan brought Rooney's total goal amount to twenty-three in all competitions and tied him with teammate Cristiano Ronaldo for the team goalscoring lead.

United announced during the postseason that Rooney had taken over the number 10 jersey that was vacated by Ruud van Nistelrooy, who had left for Real Madrid a year earlier. He was presented with the shirt at a press conference on 28 June 2007 by former United striker Denis Law, who had also worn the number during his tenure with the club.

On 12 August 2007, Rooney fractured his left metatarsal in United's opening-day goalless draw against Reading He had suffered the same injury to his right foot in 2004. After being sidelined for six weeks, he returned for United's 1-0 Champions League group stage win over Roma on 2 October, scoring the match's only goal. However, barely a month into his return, Rooney injured his ankle during a training session on 9 November, and missed an additional two weeks. His first match back was against Fulham on 3 December, in which he played seventy minutes. Rooney missed a total of ten games and finished the 2007/08 season with eighteen goals, as United clinched both the Premier League and the Champions League, in which they defeated league rivals Chelsea in the competition's first-ever all-English final.

On 14 January 2009, after scoring what turned out to be the winning goal after just 54 seconds of the game against Wigan Athletic, Rooney limped off with a hamstring injury in the eighth minute. It was later estimated that he would be out for up to three weeks.

Paul Stretford controversy

In July 2002, while Rooney was with Everton, agent Paul Stretford encouraged Rooney and his parents to enter the player into an eight-year contract with Proactive Sports Management. However, Rooney was already with another representation firm at the time, while Stretford's transaction went unreported to the FA, and he was thus charged with improper conduct. Stretford alleged in his October 2004 trial that he had secretly recorded boxing promoter John Hyland (an associate of Rooney's first agent) and two other men threatening and attempting to blackmail him for an undisclosed percentage of Rooney's earnings.

Stretford's case collapsed due to evidence that conflicted with his insistence that he had not signed Rooney, and on 9 July 2008, he was found guilty of "making of false and/or misleading witness statements to police, and giving false and/or misleading testimony. "In addition, the contract to which Stretford had signed Rooney was two years longer than the limit allowed by the FA. Stretford was fined £300,000 and banned from working as a football agent for eighteen months, a verdict he promptly appealed.

International career

Rooney became the youngest player to play for England when he earned his first cap in a friendly against Australia on 12 February 2003 at seventeen, the same age in which he also became the youngest player to score an England goal. Arsenal youngster Theo Walcott broke Rooney's appearance record by 36 days in June 2006.

His first tournament action was at Euro 2004, in which he became the youngest scorer in competition history on 17 June 2004, when he scored twice against Switzerland; however, this record was topped by Swiss midfielder Johan Vonlanthen four days later. Rooney suffered an injury in the quarterfinal match against Portugal as England were eliminated on penalties.

Following a foot injury in an April 2006 Premier League match, Rooney faced a race to fitness for the 2006 World Cup. England attempted to hasten his recovery with the use of an oxygen tent, which allowed Rooney to enter a group match against Trinidad and Tobago and start the next match against Sweden. However, he never got back into game shape and went scoreless as England bowed out in the quarterfinals, again on penalty kicks.

Rooney was red-carded in the 62nd minute of the quarterfinal for stomping on Portugal defender Ricardo Carvalho as both attempted to gain possession of the ball, an incident that occurred right in front of referee Horacio Elizondo. Rooney's United teammate Cristiano Ronaldo openly protested his actions, and was in turn shoved by Rooney. Elizondo sent Rooney off, after which Ronaldo was seen winking at the Portugal bench. Rooney denied intentionally targeting Carvalho in a statement on 3 July, adding, "I bear no ill feeling to Cristiano but am disappointed that he chose to get involved. I suppose I do, though, have to remember that on that particular occasion we were not teammates. "Elizondo confirmed the next day that Rooney was dismissed solely for the infraction on Carvalho. Rooney was fined CHF5,000 for the incident.

Personal life

Rooney met his wife, Coleen Rooney (née McLoughlin), while both were in their final year of secondary school. They married on 12 June 2008 after six years of dating, during which Rooney admitted to soliciting prostitution in Liverpool in 2004. "I was young and stupid. It was at a time when I was very young and immature and before I had settled down with Coleen. "He has a tattoo of the words "Just Enough Education To Perform," from an album title by his favorite band, the Stereophonics; Coleen arranged for the group to play at their wedding reception. In April 2006, he was awarded £100,000 in libel damages from tabloids The Sun and News of the World, who had claimed that he had assaulted her in a nightclub. Rooney donated the money to charity.

The Rooneys reside in a £4.25 million mansion in the village of Prestbury, Cheshire, which was built by a company owned by Dawn Ward, the wife of former Sheffield United striker Ashley Ward. He also owns property in Port Charlotte, Florida. While Rooney was house hunting in Cheshire after signing with Manchester United, he spotted a pub sign that read "Admiral Rodney," which he misread as "Admiral Rooney." He nonetheless considered it a positive omen for his future home. Rooney owns a French mastiff dog, which was reportedly bought for £1,250.

Rooney has endorsement deals with Nike, Nokia, Ford, Asda, and Coca-Cola. He appeared on four straight UK-version covers of Electronic Arts' FIFA series from 2005 to 2008.

On 9 March 2006, Rooney signed the largest sports book deal in publishing history with HarperCollins, who granted him a £5 million advance plus royalties for a minimum of five books to be published over a twelve-year period. The first, My Story So Far, an autobiography ghostwritten by Hunter Davies, was published after the World Cup. The second publication, The Official Wayne Rooney Annual, was aimed at the teenage market and edited by football journalist Chris Hunt.

In July 2006, Rooney's lawyers went to the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organisation to gain ownership of the Internet domain names waynerooney.com and waynerooney.co.uk, both of which Welsh actor Huw Marshall registered in 2002. Three months later, the WIPO awarded Rooney the rights to waynerooney.com.

Source : www.answers.com