Booze and body issues: Why Wayne is a man at sea without his wife

Wayne Rooney has a drink problem. This week he told his old teammate Rio Ferdinand on the latter’s podcast that his relationship with booze had got so bad, it was close to killing him. In fact, he added, he reckoned he was only around to do the recording thanks to the intervention of his wife.

“I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Coleen,” he said.

The news that the most talented English football player in a generation was in danger of drinking himself into an early grave will have come as little surprise to those who have watched his deterioration since he retired as a professional footballer in 2021. Seeing him on the touchline as manager of Plymouth Argyle last season, his eyes bleary, his stomach ballooning, his complexion blotched, was to be confronted by stark evidence of the damage the bottle was inflicting. Nor will the fact that he remains even more dependent on his strong, sparky wife raise too many eyebrows.

“She keeps me on the path and has done it for 20-odd years,” he told Ferdinand.

And the way things are going, he will need her for at least the next 20. The truth is, theirs is one of the most intriguingly symbiotic relationships in modern public life.

The pair met when Rooney was the most explosively talented teenage footballer around. In an era when wealthy players have long been easy prey for gold-diggers on the lookout for an extended payday, theirs was a relationship based on shared experience. They came from the same Liverpool neighbourhood, knew each other’s families, shared the same tastes and sense of humour. This was a proper partnership. Rooney could trust her entirely. He needed to.

Tales about his ilk were tabloid catnip. But, despite the myriad distractions available to a wealthy young athlete in his prime, give or take the odd, much-publicised straying from her side during his rise to fame, they were solid. And while she clearly benefited from his wealth – the laughable Wags tour of the 2006 World Cup the pinnacle of her pursuit of celebrity – her affection was clear and constant. With their four sons, they looked like a family united.

But Rooney had always liked a drink. For such a bullish player on the pitch, he is a surprisingly sensitive bloke. As he told Ferdinand, he still baulks at Jonathan Ross’s rude quip about a photograph of him and his parents emerging from the sea in Mexico more than 20 years ago.

He told his former teammate: “I’m actually very insecure on quite a lot of things, and I have been my whole career over my weight, being insecure now over how you look. Only Coleen knows this. If you ever see me on the beach next week, I’ve got my T-shirt on, I’ve got a cap on.” The cap, of course, might explain his endless trips to expensive hair consultants to stem the rapid retreat of his fringe.

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The drink was a way of calming the noises around him, reducing the uncertainty, flattening the nerves. Not that his drinking was public. This was not a noisy, extrovert, attention-seeking boozer. While holding a glass, he studiously avoided the close attention of mobile phone photography. When he was at his prime for Manchester United, one of his neighbours in the upmarket Cheshire redoubt of Prestbury said they had never actually caught sight of him. And they had lived next door for five years.

While Coleen was an often-seen, chatty, friendly local presence, the only evidence of Rooney was when one of his expensive cars with the blacked-out windows headed into the house’s underground car park. He would spend his non-footballing downtime locked in his man den, playing computer games, a few bottles of booze by his side. Coleen, meanwhile, did all the heavy lifting when it came to bringing up their four boys.

But it was when the pair were separated by the requirements of his work that he really began to take ever more comfort in the bottle. At first, when he went to Los Angeles at the end of his playing career in England, she and the boys went with him. But when he moved to Washington DC, she decided to fly home. And when he shifted into management, without even the protective banter of the dressing room to sustain him, he would fill his long hours alone with drink. Friends recall him making lengthy calls in which it was clear, as he slurred his words and complained of feeling isolated and lonely, that he had been drinking. Not least because the calls would arrive at nine in the morning UK time, which is 4am in Washington.

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Even when he returned to England to manage, he was obliged by the distance from the family home to live alone. None of his ventures were successful. At Birmingham City, one of the club’s American co-owners, the NFL legend Tom Brady, cast public aspersion on his approach, saying on a documentary that he was “a little worried about our head coach’s work ethic”. He only lasted 15 matches in charge.

On his next stop at Plymouth, even farther away from his wife’s steadying hand, things only grew worse. On the touchline, he looked like a man completely at sea. Though any player he has managed will speak warmly of the fact that he never complained that his charges were simply not as talented at the game as he was, he has been proven a wholly inadequate leader.

Worse for his self-esteem, wherever he went as a boss, rival fans would mock his appearance. The constant comparison was always between him and his former strike partner Cristiano Ronaldo, still svelte, still sleek, still playing, albeit in the mink-lined Saudi Pro League. Ronaldo is actually eight months older than Rooney, though he looks at least ten years younger. But then, he had always been more self-disciplined, refusing to put anything in his body that might detract from his performance. Rooney looks like a man reared on a diet of bitter and chips.

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It was notable that, however far away he might have been from them as he toured the globe in pursuit of management opportunities, he always made himself available for family milestones. He was there when his son Kai signed professional terms with Manchester United. Or when Coleen was in court facing libel charges brought by Rebekah Vardy. He was by her side every day for that trial, exuding pride at her clever investigation into who had been leaking stories about the family to the press.

It is a universally acknowledged fact about former sports stars that if they remain married, their finances stay in far better shape. One ex-player, sitting in his modest semi, once told me that divorce is the biggest wealth destroyer known to man. And many a financially sound former star is grateful to their wife for looking after the money while they got on with playing. The once-champion boxer Barry McGuigan, who these days has a property portfolio that extends across half of Canterbury, gives the credit entirely to his astute business partner: his wife.

AndRooney can be grateful to Coleen for more than simply keeping the family bank accounts in order. Since he has been obliged to stall his managerial career, he has been buffing up his media presence. He has become a regular on Match of the Day, and the BBC has launched a new podcast featuring him. And the unexpected thing is, he is proving rather good at it.

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His podcast is full of brilliantly timed anecdotes. More to the point, he is way more articulate than the widespread disparaging assumptions of his intelligence would have you imagine.

Plus, these days, while by no means challenging Ronaldo in the lean and mean physique department, he also looks much better than he did stalking the touchline at Plymouth. The application of eyedrops, which he admits he once used to cover the telltale signs of excess, is no longer necessary.

It may be the fact that he is not, these days, faced with the inordinate pressure of football management that he appears so much healthier. Or maybe it is that he is back home living full-time once more with Coleen, the woman who keeps him on the straight and narrow. The wife, he insists, to whom he owes his life.