‘Officials Are Intimidated By Rooney And United’ – Wigan Owner Dave Whelan

Chris Wright

1st, March 2011

13 Comments

By Chris Wright

Wigan owner Dave Whelan has reacted angrily after the FA announced yesterday that they were powerless to dole out any retrospective punishment to Wayne Rooney, chiefly because referee Mark Clattenburg deemed that giving the Manchester United striker a little hug was the ‘appropriate action’ to take after his elbow assault on Latics midfielder James McCarthy’s temples.

Whelan is quoted in this morning’s Sun as saying:

“[The FA’s decision] sends out a terrible message. Something is wrong when a top international like Rooney is seen doing something like this, as clear as day, and is allowed to get away without being punished.

“If it was any other club or player, you can bet your life he would have been sent off, but officials seem to be intimidated by the words ‘Rooney’ and ‘United’.

“Manchester United are allowed to get away with things the rest of us get pulled up for, and you can’t have one set of rules for one club and another for the rest.

“I don’t care what the FA say about the matter being dealt with at the time by us getting a free-kick. They, and everyone else in football, know justice isn’t being served here.

“The FA will be delighted they can hide behind their rules and let Rooney off, as they are frightened of taking sanctions against him and his club.”

Well, there you go. Whelan is famed for his straight-laced, one-eyed ire but it’s really quite difficult to argue with the facts.

We’ve seen several prominent England players (Gerrard, Shearer, Rooney again) spared the rod by the FA in recent history, thus protecting their interests, as well as seeing both Wolves and Blackpool sanctioned and fined for possessing the temerity to field first-team squad members for Premier League games – to use but two recent examples.

I guess the most surprising thing to take away from this is that anyone, in this case Whelan, is surprised by the FA’s antics anymore – though it’s fair to point out that, even though Rooney’s cowardly elbow was laced with barely-concealed malice, it’s not like he shot anybody for Christ’s sake.

Posted in Man Utd, Wigan Athletic

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13 Comments

  1. redder says:

    the english FA scared of Fergie’s big penis and rooney’s handsome face. I will the whole world that the idiots english FA is being bribe by fergie’s own pocket! man utd where got money to bribe them, huge debt until the glazers no spander to wear!

  2. torressi says:

    English FA is the joke of the century! where got justice? the english law is well know JUSTICE in this world but now,,,, idiot in the making!

  3. C says:

    And now Whelan will probably get a fine or something. On the other hand, if Fergie or anyone else from Man Utd said stuff like this, there would be no fine.

    Gotta love corruption…

  4. K P V says:

    Thats ok, he is wayne rooney, the greatest player EVER, who plays for the greatest club EVER , I’ve said it before, say it again, MAN UTD players and staff should be allowed to do whatever, whenever, our history speaks for itself.

    http://www.twitter.com/andrewabrahim

    follow me on twitter @andrewabrahim yall

  5. Pedro says:

    People are fucking stupid and myopic. Does no one recall Stevie Me elbowing Michael Brown last year? Can anyone remember what happened? That’s right, sweet Fuck All. The FA has no option in this case as Clattenburg said he made no mistake. The rules are the rules. The ref. should be punished though, you can’t let players get away with this kind of behaviour.

  6. redknapp says:

    english FA is really a joke in this world! well done english!

  7. Leonidas says:

    why do you keep deleting my comments!? what the fuck is wrong with you?

  8. Montesquieu says:

    @Redder.

    Speak English.

  9. Grant says:

    To be fair, the organization that fined Wolves and Blackpool was the Premier League, not the FA.

  10. Chris says:

    @Leonidas: Because you just keep telling people to ‘f*ck off’, which surprisingly enough doesn’t make it through the spam filter.

    @Grant: I could be wrong here, but don’t the Premier League board operate under the jurisdiction of the FA?

  11. Grant says:

    @Chris: Sure it’s within the jurisdiction of the FA, but the reason Wolves and Blackpool were fined was a violation of an internal Premier League rule mandating that clubs field their strongest team in all Premier League games. If it was an FA rule then clubs like Arsenal and Manchester United (and Blackpool as well come to think of it) couldn’t help but be fined for fielding weakened teams in the FA Cup this year. That rule shouldn’t be in existence in the first place, but since it is I think the correct people should be blamed for it.

    As for Rooney, I actually would love nothing more than for the next time Man United play a smaller team a manager puts a reserve player on the bench and brings them on just to knock Rooney the fuck out with a blindside elbow to his temple. He’s such a despicable person you get the feeling the only way he will learn is by giving him a taste of his own medicine.

  12. Ryan says:

    Yeah, Prince William is going to punish him…

  13. jesse says:

    manures intimidating tactics don’t work very well outside old trafford…like yesterday for instance

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