Wayne Rooney uses Football Manager scouts for D.C United
D.C United has been using Football Manager scouts to recruit real-life prospects, Wayne Rooney has revealed to The Times.
“A lot of the market is South America and we’ve done a deal with Football Manager, where we give them some advertising and they give us access to the scouts – 11 or 12 of them – that they use in different places across the world to help them create the game,” Rooney said.
Rooney doesn’t even proclaim to be the innovator of this unorthodox recruitment method, further making the claim that Champions and Premier League winner Jose Mourinho has also done so. It’s worth noting that Rooney spent a season with Mourinho when ‘The Special One’ took charge of Manchester United.
Rooney would later leave for boyhood club Everton, before making his first foray into the MLS as a player with D.C. United. He left Washington for his first coaching role, becoming a player-coach with Derby County. He was later made the manager of the side and retired from his playing career.
The former England captain returned to D.C. as the manager shortly after resigning from Derby, with the club still in financial administration and relegated to EFL League One. As well as his unorthodox scouting method, Rooney has been groundbreaking in the transfer market, making use of personal contacts to bring ex-Derby attacker Ravel Morrison in on a free transfer. But he also broke the club record to bring in Christian Benteke for €6.5 million.
D.C. United currently sits in ninth place in the MLS Eastern Conference. As a result, their current position would secure them a place in the MLS Playoffs Wild Card game, played between eighth and ninth-placed teams in the Eastern and Western Conferences. They have 10 games left to play.
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