Rooney broke Law 12 and was charged with using “offensive, insulting and/or abusive language”. Despite players directing this language at referees and opponents on a weekly basis and receiving no punishment, the FA banned Rooney for two games. They claimed that because his language had been directed at a camera he deserved a ban, despite the law making no mention or reference to this. According to the FA, abusing a referee is acceptable but saying “fucking” on camera is worthy of a ban.

Regardless, on Friday night, Rooney lost his temper and took a swipe at his opponent in England’s game against Montenegro. He managed some control, pulling back before making any real contact, and the player accepted his hand straight away. However, the referee was left with little option but to send him off.

Rooney now stands to miss England games in next summer’s Euro 2012 and the FA are all too aware of how important he is to the team. They have put in an appeal to UEFA in the hope he will receive just a one match ban.

“We have been working very hard behind the scenes to ensure that we are prepared to support Wayne in any way we can,” said the FA’s director of communications, Adrian Bevington. “If it does lead to an appeal process, or any supplementary evidence we can submit to support him, we are not disputing that he was sent off for a red-card offence, but it is very important to us as an organisation that we try and look after all our players. And I would like to say, on the record, that Wayne conducted himself incredibly well after the game. He was very apologetic and I felt he handled it very maturely. We will do all that we can to try and ensure that Wayne is available to us as soon as possible in the finals.”

This statement is particularly interesting when you consider that Rooney “conducted himself incredibly well” after the West Ham game too and was “very apologetic” then as well. He even released a statement saying how sorry he was. The FA didn’t take that in to consideration in his appeal though and banned him for two games, meaning he missed out on our crucial FA Cup semi-final against City.

Whilst of course I want the best for Rooney in this situation, I won’t lose any sleep if the FA find England without their best player for two or three games.

“The FA may realise who has produced more players for their country than any club in the world,” said Ferguson this summer. “Maybe they will get some joy from it and realise how important we are to England instead of treating us like shit.”

What goes around comes around.

This newspaper clipping, taken from March 1966, shows the opinion of referee Concetto Lo Bello that Manchester United were better than the International team, who went on to win the World Cup a few months later.

Concetto Lo Bello was an Italian referee who holds the record for taking charge of the most Serie A games. His career lasted 30 years and throughout the 1960s he was regarded as one of the world’s finest referees.

Two years after making these comments about United he refereed the European Cup final between us and Benfica at Wembley.

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Newspaper clip from Manchester United football book

“I spoke with the players and personally with some players, and I spoke with the squad before I decided that John Terry will be the captain,” said Capello. “All the players were happy because John Terry was always a very important leader on the pitch and to the team.”

After announcing to the press that he was likely to give the armband back to Terry, Capello headed to Old Trafford. He was supposed to meet with Rio but the press claimed no official meeting had been arranged, so Rio didn’t go running around trying to find him.

Capello has been asked today as to why, a whole week later, he still hasn’t spoken to Rio about taking the captaincy off him and replacing him with the shamed John Terry.

“I know that Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard are not fit. I knew it was the moment, with one game which is so important, to have one captain like John Terry,” said Capello. “I tried to meet him (Ferdinand) when Manchester United played against Marseille but he told me no. I can understand everything, but I need to make decisions. I think I will be happy and will meet him in the future. It didn’t happen, he didn’t come. Its a question for him, not for me. I was in the directors’ box. You have to ask him, okay?”

Sadly, it appears as though Rio’s club team mate, Wayne Rooney, is amongst those giving his backing to Capello and Terry.

“For us as players it’s down to the manager who he picks as captain,” he said. “There is nothing we can do to influence Fabio Capello’s decision. I don’t think Rio Ferdinand is fit and he hasn’t played for us for a while at United, so the manager has to make that decision. The captain has to wear the armband. You have to shout and be a leader but I have said many times that John Terry, even when he is not the captain, is a massive leader for us.”

Cheers Wayne. How Rio could even consider playing for this man and amongst those players is beyond me. Every England player asked has said they’re “100% behind Terry” and not a single one of them has spoken out over how badly Rio has been treated. I’d love to hear what Gary Neville would have made of the disgraceful behaviour of the manager and team mates in light of the treatment of Rio. Turns out that Terry isn’t the only England player who doesn’t give a fuck about his team mate…

Sadly, less than a year later, Rio has had the armband taken away from him and Fabio Capello didn’t even have the decency to talk to him first.

He talked to the newspapers and basically said John Terry was going to get it because Rio gets injured. He didn’t confirm this was what was going to happen but more or less said that was the deal.

He then came to Old Trafford to watch United vs Bolton but didn’t make any formal arrangements to meet Rio, despite telling the press he intended to “talk to” our player then. I guess Rio wasn’t going to run around after him, Fabio didn’t run around after Rio, so they didn’t meet.

That evening, Capello announced that Rio was no longer captain and that after a year without the captaincy, Terry had been punished enough.

When Terry had the captaincy taken away from him, Capello met with him to explain why. We’re not just talking about the morals of the player, because where England players are concerned, Terry is no worse than plenty of others. The issue is with the dressing room. How can you have a captain who is having it off with the mother of his team-mates’ children behind his (and his wife’s) back? If it had been Coleen Rooney who had been wooed by JT and Wayne Rooney who said he wouldn’t be going to the World Cup, would Terry have even got near the team again, let alone had the armband returned? No way. If something is wrong and deserved punishment, it shouldn’t matter which team mate is getting fucked over, whether it was Bridge or Rooney, Milner or Lampard.

So, Terry deserved an explanation but apparently Rio, whose only crime is being injured, doesn’t. Still, maybe there’s some justification behind Capello’s decision, even if there is no justification for the way he has gone about it.

Let’s have a look at the injuries then in the 6 games that have been played since the World Cup.

vs Denmark – Terry played, Rio injured.
vs France – Terry injured, Rio played.
vs Hungary – Terry played, Rio injured.
vs Montenagro – Terry injured, Rio played.
vs Switzerland – Terry injured, Rio injured.
vs Bulgaria – Terry injured, Rio injured.

Both Terry and Rio have been injured for 4 of the 6 games.

So the injuries excuse is rubbish so essentially, for whatever reason, Capello wants Terry as his captain. He made the decision soon after Rio lifted the European Cup with United on a night when Terry missed what would have been the winning penalty and wandered around the pitch crying, making no effort to support his team mates. I can only assume Capello is drawn to losers… the reason why he took the England job in the first place no doubt.

So, what does Rio do now? Not face to face, but again through the press, Capello has said that Rio is still a very important player. Is that good enough for Rio? England have taken the piss out of him. If his injuries are an issue, then take the armband off him and give it to someone who isn’t injury prone too. If his injuries are an issue, then take the armband off him and give it to someone deserving, not someone who shamefully had it stripped off them after doing the dirty on an England team mate.

What consquences this decision has on the England team is not my concern, although you don’t have to be a genius to work out that JT isn’t the most popular man in the England camp, particularly after his World Cup press conference stunt, so it’s hard to imagine everyone in that dressing room will be overjoyed that Terry is captain and the more popular Rio Ferdinand got fucked over in the process. But what is important to us is how it effects our player. He’s been embarrassed by the decision of the FA and Capello and it’s not nice to watch. Will this have a negative effect on him?

Quite honestly, the only bad thing Rio could do in this situation is to carry on playing for England. Fancy having to endure lining up behind Terry, the new captain, knowing that the job should be yours. It’s humiliating.

Like Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs before him, Rio needs to get his priorities sorted, and England have given him a great excuse. Quitting International football will give him have a longer club career, representing a team who have always stood by him.

So come on Rio, do the right thing. Don’t just hand over your armband but your boots too.

UNITED > England.

“It gets out of hand, ridiculously so,” said Foster. “You have to perform amazingly well in every single game. You could win and people would still say Manchester United should be doing better than that, should be winning by four or five goals. I just thought it was too much. I see myself as a winner, I am competitive even if I am only playing a video game, but United is another step up the ladder of mental toughness and strength. There is not as much pressure even with England, where every little thing gets scrutinised. United have their own ethos that comes from within. Winning is all. Even practice matches were very intense, win at all costs. You’d see tackles flying in and little scuffles all the time, but that is what United are. That is what they carry on to the pitch on a Saturday and you’ve got to admire them for that. When they were 2-0 down at Blackpool, for instance, I knew they would come back and win. They have that toughness. It’s expected.”

Foster has previously called life at United “cut throat” and not for him, an opinion he stands by today.

“I don’t want to be accused of lacking ambition, I think every professional cares, but I can move on from a defeat pretty much as soon as I step off the pitch,” he added. “I want to enjoy my football, then get home to my family, that’s what matters to me.”

“That mentality comes from the confidence of winning,” he said. “Winning things would help. But we [at England] have to get into the situation to win things. And the truth is, we haven’t. Finding the formula, you could say, is part of management. The manager has it at Manchester United. You look at the game on Saturday. We’re down, he sends on two attacking players and that puts you on the front foot. You respond to that. It stems from the manager, you don’t want to go into the dressing room and face him if you’ve left something on the pitch. But that said, it’s not just management. Up till now as players we’ve not done our bit. There’s no hiding from that.”

Now, I am not pretending I have never heard our fans give the players stick or boo the team, because I have, and it embarrasses me. This season against Sunderland, for example, we went in 1-0 down at half time. The whistle was met with some boos from around the ground, which I found hugely shameful. Thankfully, a chorus of “we love United we do” was sung in response sharpish as the players walked to the tunnel, with far more fans understanding what the role of a football supporter is. Six minutes after the restart, Dimitar Berbatov scored.

You aren’t always going to like what you see at your football ground, regardless of how much money you’ve paid, but as a supporter, your job is to support the team.

Charlton Athletic finished 7th in the Premier League six seasons ago, just 7 points away from the top four. In the season just gone they were in League One and finished 4th, 11 points off top spot. Still, they drew an average attendance of over 17,000. A season tickets can cost £425 at The Valley.

Nine years ago, Leeds United were playing Champions League football. In the season just gone they were in League One and drew an average attendance of over 23,000. A season ticket can cost £480 at Elland Road.

A season ticket at Old Trafford for next season can cost £513, to put in to perspective just how much these two examples of fans pay to support their team.

If you pay for your ticket, are you paying for your right to boo if your players don’t perform? Your hard earned wage goes on spending the best part of one day of your weekend on a ticket for the football, whilst the players you are watching play earn several times the amount you earn in a year in just one week. The best doctors in this country earn in a year what Wayne Rooney does in a week.

Yes, the money in football is ridiculous, but then, the money football brings in is equally ridiculous. Our Champions League win alone in 2008 saw us collect £80m and Ronaldo earned £5.3m from us that season. So yes, footballers earn stupid amounts of money, but believe you me, the clubs can earn a hell of a lot more. But more often than not, when the team doesn’t play well and the fans moan about how much money they’ve paid to watch that performance, it’s the players they whinge about, on their massive salaries, not the clubs for ripping you off… or in the case of England supporters, the FA.

Last night, England put on a truly awful performance against Algeria and finished the game with a poor 0-0 draw. They now have it all to do in the final game of the group and may not get through to the next round, where they would have to play either Germany or Ghana. Let’s be honest, even with a few beers down my neck and “Vindaloo” playing full-blast through the pub’s speakers, there wasn’t much to enjoy about what we saw yesterday. With Rooney, the only player I was interested in, playing like dog shit and his team mates following suit, I was left wondering what on earth I was doing there.

The City fans were calling Rooney a twat, the United fans were giving as good as they got reminding the bitters that Rooney was their only hope and slagged off Shauny Wright Wright Wright and Gareth Barry, and everyone called Lampard a fat bastard, Terry a Chelsea rentboy and Gerrard a scouse bastard. Mmmm, one big happy England family. The anger and frustration built as the game went on and more alcohol got drunk. When the final whistle went there was total disbelief. As if England had played that badly and as if they couldn’t even come close to scoring against Algeria.

We carried on drinking and I milled about until I found company more willing to talk about United’s debt than England’s woeful performance and then I got a call. “You see what Rooney said after the game? Had a pop at all the England fans who were booing!”

I hadn’t heard any booing, although it didn’t come as a surprise to learn that’s what England fans had been doing, but I couldn’t quite believe that Rooney had openly come out to criticise them.

England fans will believe that because they’ve travelled all that way and spent all that money, they have the right to voice their displeasure at such a dire performance. I totally agree they have the right but it depends how they view their role as a “supporter”. I ask of them the same I asked of the individuals who ripped Berbatov to shreds at Ewood Park last season: what are you trying to achieve? Is booing the players going to make them play better? Are they playing like shit out of choice but now you’ve booed them they are going to make the choice not to play badly? Or are you totally demoralising them? Are you making them angry and frustrated and like they have nothing to play for? If their own fans hate them so much, then what is the point?

I sat in my seat for ages after the final whistle following our 4-1 defeat against Liverpool the season before last. Maybe I was just stunned or numb, I’m not sure, but there were quite a few of us around. We had applauded our players off the pitch and sung of our love for them, despite the agonising feeling that losing to your rivals, and possibly gifting them the title, brings.

“I am disappointed with the behaviour of those so-called fans,” said Evra after being booed off the pitch for France following their defeat to Nigeria in a friendly a few months after that Liverpool game. “They should be supporting their team instead of whistling. Manchester lost a big game at Old Trafford against Liverpool 4-1, however the fans still applaud us off the field. They understand there are off days in a football team’s life. After that defeat we won the league.”

Rooney’s outburst will be criticised. They’ll question his professionalism and they will wonder whether he is in a position to talk of the fans this way. But the point is, Rooney was subjected to something he is not used to. He played badly, likely saw the fans shouting all the abuse that comes with playing badly for England, and was booed off the field. At United, he is untouchable, but last night he experienced something pretty shocking.

I for one applaud what he said. England fans are out of control. If they want to boo, that is their right, but they will contribute to their own team’s downfall. Maybe that is what they want? Maybe they enjoy having something to bitch and moan about? But if you sit there booing your own team and slagging off your own players, don’t expect them to come out fighting for the shirt in the following game. I’d love Rooney to score in the next game and stick his fingers up at those mugs in the stands. Really give them something to boo about, lad.

Alternatively, just retire from International football and leave them to it. We’ll sing your name louder than ever next season because we appreciate you more than that lot ever will.

Being a football supporter doesn’t mean you never get fed up with your team and you’re never critical of your players. You obviously don’t become a robot stripped of emotion but you should be able to bite your tongue and get behind your team. If England’s campaign ends at the group stage, then booing the players off in that final game against Slovenia is more understandable, whilst still not a tact I would go for with my team. But to boo them now is madness. That is not a motivation to do well. When England go home, whenever that may be, the players and the manager will be blamed, but it is those fans out there, who’ve paid a shed load of money and who paint their faces, who have contributed to their own team’s demise, which surely totally contradicts their role as a football “supporter”.

United fans have high expectations, put in place by the all the trophies we’ve won, yet it is a rarity to see such a negative reaction from our fans. No set of supporters is ever perfect, but by and large, we get behind our lads, regardless of the performance or the score. The recent 4-1 defeat at the hands of Liverpool is a prime example. You look at England fans, whose team have won one trophy ever, and that was 44 years ago, and you think why do they expect to win. Why do they demand such highs from a team who have repeatedly disappointed them? Yet whenever the team fail to meet their expectations, they boo and berate them. Can you imagine if England lost 4-1 to Argentina? To Germany? Our ears would be ringing for days following those boos.

Regardless, we love you Wazza and like Ferguson has spoilt our fans with success, we’ve spoilt you with support. So, White Pele, come home soon and let us remind you what proper supporters do.

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Choose England
Rooney: Fact or fury?

“Nice to see your own fans booing you,” Rooney said. “That’s loyal support.”

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Choose England

Choose England t-shirts available from Mancunia Merchandise for as little as £8.50.

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UNITED > England designs on Mancunia Merchandise: 1, 2, 3, 4.

UNITED > England designs on Mancunia Merchandise: 1, 2, 3, 4.

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England fans not trusted to respect Busby Babes tribute
The FA screw United over with FA Cup 2000
Wembley jeers won’t stop silence
David Beckham dartboard
Isn’t it time the FA made an example of someone else?
Carragher: I’d rather miss for England than Liverpool
Carlsberg “Munich” advert
FA stitch United up with Evra ban
United > England on Facebook
RoM on the FA
RoM on United > England