ROONEY'S PUPPET MASTER

He does come across as a pr!ck, but then aren't all agents. This was an extract from a piece by Daniel Taylor last year in the Guardian.

"Collymore remembers Stretford going from being “a thorough, professional, understated guy to this horrible parody of an agent”, wearing a long Gucci coat and sunglasses and christened, behind his back, as “Toad” by the player’s mates, because he reminded them of the character from The Wind in the Willows. That may sound fairly inconsequential. Yet Collymore also came to think of himself as “a doormat” as far as Stretford was concerned and, explaining why he eventually severed all ties, depicts him as a deeply manipulative character. ”I had always done whatever he said. I said yes to all sorts of things, often without looking at them. I allowed the line between him being my surrogate father and my agent to become blurred. And he played on that big-time. He abused it. My relationship with him was unhealthily dependent and he milked it for all it was worth.”

One time, shortly after Collymore had moved from Liverpool to Aston Villa, he says he took a telephone call from Stretford begging for money. “His business was expanding and he had calculated I owed him £80,000.” Collymore says he ran some checks and worked out he did not owe a penny. “A couple of days later Stretford rang again. This time he was near enough in tears. He said: ‘You do love me, don’t you Stan?’” Collymore wrote a cheque because “that was the kind of hold he had over me”."

Why can't footballers do what players such as Scholes and Milner did/do and have no agents at all and use the PFA for advice when it's needed.

He does indeed - but he's not getting his way this time.

This time, however, Stretford is not going to get what he and his client want. United, are not going to let Rooney join Chelsea, no matter how many roubles Roman Abramovich chucks at it or what the player and his agent cook up next.”

He may not be going to Chelsea but he'll have £300k a week to ease his sorrows. Rooney is one greedy cant. It doesn't matter how much he earns he still wants more.