Dick of the year: Wayne Rooney
This is a nomination for dick of the year from Cory Hazlehurst who blogs here
Wayne Rooney, footballer
I’m not nominating Wayne Rooney because of his woeful World Cup performances. As Bill Bailey has observed, the English crave disappointment, so Rooney was only giving the public what they want. The nomination is also unconnected to the revelations that he slept with a prostitute whilst his wife was pregnant.
In October Rooney said that he wanted to leave Manchester United because they did not “match his ambitions”. Two days later he performed a Clegg-esque u-turn, and signed a five-year contract. The consensus was that Rooney had been “posturing” to receive an improved contract offer, taking his weekly wages from £90,000 to an eye-watering £250,000 a week.
The coalition insists that “we are all in this together”. The salaries of Rooney and his ilk make a mockery of that claim. They are unjustifiable given that the impending cuts that will affect the poorest most, and that inequality causes corrosive social problems.
Even after tax, Rooney earns five times more in a week than the average annual salary, and will earn more in 2011 than the average person earns in a lifetime. Aditya Chakrabortty argued for the introduction of a “Rooney tax”. If this happens, maybe Wayne Rooney won’t be Dick of the Year 2011.
ROONEY ! GREAT FOOTBALLER BUT A MASSIVE BELLEND 100%
Hi Cory,
I’ve found the link to the story I had mentioned. It was in the Indy:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/premier-league-stars-using-loophole-to-save-millions-in-tax-2118289.html
Is that right, Stuart? When finding out how much Rooney earned, there was a site that said he was earning £250K a week which translated to £180K a week after tax. I wasn’t sure how that worked with the 50% top rate, but that would make a lot of sense. Do you have a link for that story?
And to rub salt into the wound, we hear reports that the richest footballers and football clubs have set up “pension funds” that they pay into, so to avoid paying all their income tax