Wayne Rooney disclosed the size of the most lucrative contract of his Manchester United career: a package worth as much as \u00a317 million per season, the equivalent of around \u00a3325,000 per week. The revelation prompted stunned reactions from Gary Neville, Roy Keane and Jamie Carragher during a recent episode of the Stick to Football podcast on The Overlap network.<\/p>\n
The discussion compared wages across generations. Neville recalled that at his peak in 2001 he signed a contract worth \u00a31.5 million per season, just under \u00a330,000 each week. Keane\u2019s landmark deal at the end of 1999 had been worth \u00a350,000, and the former midfielder\u2019s best ever deal a few years later was around double that, an annual salary in the region of \u00a35 million. Carragher said his best Liverpool contract paid \u00a33 million, while Ian Wright\u2019s most lucrative deal was worth \u00a31.25 million annually at West Ham United, with Arsenal paying him less.<\/p>\n
Rooney\u2019s \u00a317 million-per-season figure is not believed to be the contract that followed his public questioning of Manchester United\u2019s ambition in 2010. Instead it relates to the five-year contract he signed in February 2014 at the age of 28.<\/p>\n
Neville argued that his own choices around contracts were driven by security and loyalty. \u201cMoney was never a focus for me. I never once worried about the money side of it,\u201d he said. \u201c[I thought] if I can get to the end of my career, at 35 or 36, at Manchester United, then I know I\u2019ll be alright. I wouldn\u2019t earn as much money signing these long-term contracts, [but] being a one-club man, being at United, was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they offered me a seven-year contract on lower money, it was better for me than going for three or four years at higher money. I always thought in a more cautious way, if I got injured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neville recalled signing what he described as the most lucrative contract of his career around 2007 for \u00a31.75 million per season with a \u00a3500,000 signing bonus, then suffering an injury in 2008 that kept him out for a year while his deal ran on. He also noted the impact of the 1995 Bosman ruling on later negotiations and said Rooney was \u201cright to push the club\u201d for the best contract. Keane added: \u201cYou kept signing long-term contracts, so you never had a good bargaining position. My contract was running out a couple of times, so I got a good bargaining position. It\u2019s not being greedy, it\u2019s self-worth. As a manager, I used to admire the players who\u2019d fight their corner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney said his most lucrative contract paid \u00a317m a season; peers contrasted old wages and security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1148,1083],"tags":[983,1032,1077],"class_list":["post-4601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highest-paid-players","category-man-utd","tag-agents","tag-contract-disputes","tag-contract-renewal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}