Earlier this year ESPN Deportes reported that Premier League star Wayne Rooney could be coming to play for Atlanta United.
The rumor came at the heels of a Guardian report saying that Rooney, wants to play in MLS later in his career.
Now, the head of MLS himself, Don Garber has added fuel to the rumor fire. According to the Manchester Evening News via ESPN FC, Garber talked about stars he would like to bring to MLS at the Soccerex Convention in Manchester, England:
“We would love players like Wayne Rooney, and those who have been able to be really successful at the highest level, to be thinking about Major League Soccer. Today, that’s perhaps in their-30s and maybe, sometime in the future, that’s in their mid-20s.”
Wayne Rooney’s contract runs through 2020 at Manchester United, and would require Atlanta United to pay a transfer fee to bring the star over to MLS, before that. The largest transfer fee MLS has ever paid to acquire a player was $10 million for American Michael Bradley before the 2014 season.
Rooney has had a inauspicious start the 2015-16 campaign going scoreless in the first four Premier League matches. Some around the soccer world are already questioning whether or not Rooney is a top talent. When 2017 arrives, anything is possible regarding an aging player and transfers, so this rumor isn’t as crazy as it first sounded back in July.
Dirty South Soccer 