Wayne Rooney would not accept Premier League medal if Manchester City are stripped of titles
Wayne Rooney has said he "wouldn’t really feel comfortable" accepting another Premier League medal if Manchester City were stripped of their titles for breaching league rules.
According to The Athletic, City were found guilty by an independent panel on all but one of 115 charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations. City are expected to appeal, and sanctions have not yet been decided.
The verdict has raised the prospect of clubs being retrospectively handed City's trophies. Manchester United are one side who would benefit from such sanctions and could be handed the 2011/12 and 2017/18 Premier League titles, when they finished runners-up to City.
Rooney’s former team-mate, Rio Ferdinand, has already made several social media posts on the subject.
However, Rooney, speaking on the Stick to United podcast, does not share that view.
"I have heard Rio come out saying about getting another Premier League medal. I wouldn’t really feel comfortable accepting another Premier League medal, if I’m being honest," the 40-year-old said.
"I don’t think we deserve it, we didn’t do enough that season to win the league. I think we were six or seven points clear with four or five games to go and we threw it away."
Rooney also said that he had tried to see the situation from the perspective of the City squad.
"I’ve seen everything that has come out over the past few days and listening to people and I was putting myself in a Man City player’s shoes. They are doing everything to win a Premier League title and in their minds, they have done it, they have won the Premier League title.
"If there was a medal, I wouldn’t be comfortable taking it. I would be comfortable with it being taken off them, but I wouldn’t be comfortable accepting a medal for finishing second."
Rooney won the Premier League five times during his United career between 2004 and 2017, scoring a club-record 253 goals in 559 matches.
It remains unclear whether City, who won three Premier League titles during the period the alleged breaches took place, would lose any titles or see them reassigned.
Rule W.51 of the league’s handbook allows punishments ranging from reprimands and fines to points deductions and expulsion from the competition. City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said on Saturday: "The Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began."
