How Wayne Rooney Shed £12m In One Easy Step

Given his recent extra-marital misdemeanours, it should come as little surprise that Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney‘s intrinsic commercial value has – if you’ll excuse the unavoidable pun – waned of late.

His recurring inability to regulate which orifices he crams his junk into has already cost Rooney one of his high-profile sponsors, after Coca-Cola chose to withdraw his gummy smirk from their ‘Coke Zero’ products – claiming that they felt it was ‘no longer appropriate’ to run a promotional campaign that was endorsed by a man with less respect for the sanctity of marriage vows than Errol Flynn.

According to the new (Anglo-centric) ‘footballing rich list’ commissioned and published by FourFourTwo.com, Rooney has seen his market worth drop by a staggering £12 million in the few short weeks since the allegations over his private perfidities were made so very public – thus seeing him fall from 3rd to 6th in the individual footballers’ rankings and from 65th to 89th overall.

The 24-year-old now finds himself behind his United teammates Ryan Giggs, Michael Owen and Rio Ferdinand in the pecking order, with veteran Newcastle defender Sol Campbell (a re-entry thanks to his lucrative, short-term contracts at Notts County and Arsenal) also coming in two places above him in fourth spot.

LA Galaxy’s walking billboard David Beckham has unsurprisingly retained his position at the top of the individual pile, despite his value dropping by 20% from £125 million to £100 million due to him missing the World Cup through injury as well as his ‘advancing years’ -as Hugh Sleight, the editor-in-chief of ­FourFourTwo.com, explains;

“For Beckham, missing the World Cup and approaching retirement have had an effect and we’ve cut his value by a fifth to £100m. As you’d expect, Brand Beckham™ have a cunning business plan to ensure their financial power continues even after Becks hangs up his boots, but that’s still in its early stages.

Wayne Rooney’s flirtations with the front pages have clearly affected his value to sponsors and we ­correspondingly cut his value by a third. He’s young and he has time to bounce back, on and off the pitch, but for the time being, his reputation has been seriously tarnished.”

The various FourFourTwo.com Football Rich Lists read thusly, firstly the individual player rankings:

• 1) David Beckham, aged 35/36, LA Galaxy, £100m (last year: £125m, 1st)

• 2) Michael Owen, aged 30, Manchester United, £40m (last year: £38m, 2nd)

• 3) Rio Ferdinand, aged 31, Manchester United, £34m (last year £30m, 4th)

• 4) Sol Campbell, aged 36, Newcastle United, £31m (re-entry)

• 5) Ryan Giggs, aged 36, Manchester United, £27m (last year £24m, 5th)

• 6) Wayne Rooney, aged 24, Manchester United, £25m (last year £37m, 3rd)

• 7=) Steven Gerrard, aged 30, Liverpool, £22m (last year £20m, 8th)

• 7=) Frank Lampard, aged 32, Chelsea, £22m (last year £21m, 7th)

• 9) John Terry, aged 29, Chelsea, £19m (last year £18m, 9th)

• 10=) Didier Drogba, aged 32, Chelsea, £18m (last year £16m, 10th)

• 10= ) Patrick Vieira, aged 34, Manchester City, £18m (new entry)

The individual manager rankings offer little in the way of surprises, except for the inclusion of Ipswich Town manager Roy Keane in second place, one position (and a full £2 million) above his former manager at Manchester United Sir Alex Ferguson – although his career earnings as a player are obviously also taken into consideration:

• 1) Fabio Capello, aged 64, England, £36m (last year: £30m)

• 2) Roy Keane, aged 39, Ipswich, £28m (last year: £27m)

• 3) Sir Alex Ferguson, aged 68, Manchester United, £26m (last year: £22m)

• 4) Carlo Ancelotti, aged 51, Chelsea, £21m (last year: £17m)

• 5) Arsene Wenger, aged 61, Arsenal, £17m (last year: £15m)

• 6=) Sven-Goran Eriksson, aged 62, Leicester City, £15m (last year: £15m)

• 6=) Roberto Mancini, aged 46, Manchester City, £15m (new entry)

• 8=) Mark Hughes, aged 46, Fulham, £10m (last year: £8m)

• 8=) Harry Redknapp, aged 63, Tottenham, £10m (last year: £10m)

• 8= ) Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, aged 37, Manchester United Reserves, £10m (new entry)

And lastly, the individual owners and major shareholders rankings:

• 1) Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nayan, aged 40, Manchester City,  £20bn (last year £17bn, 2nd)

• 2) Lakshmi Mittal and family, aged 60, QPR, £17bn (last year £18.4bn, 1st)

• 3) Alisher Usmanov, aged 57, Arsenal, £8bn (last year £1.3bn, 9th)

• 4) Roman Abramovich, aged 43, Chelsea, £7.4bn (last year £7.8bn, 3rd)

• 5) The Liebherr Family, Southampton, £3bn (new entry)

• 6) Joe Lewis, aged 63, Tottenham, £2.7bn (last year £2.5bn, 4th)

• 7) Denis O’Brien, aged 52, Celtic, £1.87bn ( last year £1.73bn, 6th)

• 8)  Stanley Kroenke, aged 62, Arsenal, £1.85bn (last year £2.079bn, 5th)

• 9) Malcolm Glazer and family, Manchester United, £1.53bn (last year £1.5bn, 7th)

• 10) Bernie Ecclestone, aged 79, QPR, £1.4bn (last year £1.466bn, 8th)

The full range of lists and an explanation as to how they are calculated can be found on the FourFourTwo website.