Dominic Fifield and Michael Walker
Everton last night rejected a formal £20 million bid from Newcastle United for Wayne Rooney, though they remain braced for further inquiries from the north-east club and others for the England international before the transfer window closes.
Newcastle's chairman Freddy Shepherd faxed his Everton counterpart Bill Kenwright yesterday with the surprise offer, the first concrete bid for the teenager since he excelled for England at Euro 2004. However, Everton value Rooney at nearer £30 million and reacted swiftly to knock back the bid.
"I can confirm that we have received a bid of £20 million for Wayne Rooney from Newcastle United," said an Everton spokesperson last night. "This bid has been turned down."
The Merseyside club still hope Rooney will commit to a new £50,000-a-week, five-year deal at Goodison Park, though their attempts to reach a compromise on the amount of a get-out clause in that contract have as yet proved fruitless, casting doubt on the youngster's future at the club. Everton would seek a £30 million release fee, with the striker's agent Paul Stretford understood to be seeking a figure matching Newcastle's bid.
Newcastle's move may well be troubling for the manager Bobby Robson. This is a club that has just lost its best defender in Jonathan Woodgate to Real Madrid - though the £13.4 million received would help explain their financial muscle - and which is already struggling to accommodate four strikers in Alan Shearer, Craig Bellamy, Patrick Kluivert and Shola Ameobi.
Newcastle finished the 1-0 defeat to Tottenham on Saturday with that quartet on the pitch and Robson is perplexed by the situation. He may be on the verge of dropping Shearer for tomorrow night's game against Norwich. But the manager's input into the transfer bid may be as limited as his involvement in the recruitment of Kluivert and Nicky Butt this summer.
Of greater influence at St James' Park, it seems, is Stretford, whose relationship with Shepherd could not be closer. The pair socialise together while Shepherd's son, Kenneth, works for Stretford as business development director of the company formerly known as Proactive Sports Management.
The company has recently changed its name to Formation Group PLC, advertising itself in the programme for the recent Newcastle-Gateshead Cup tournament, which it organised, at St James' Park. The tournament itself was described as the "brainchild" of Kenneth Shepherd.
In their advertisement Formation stated it manages 270 people worldwide and 112 based in the UK. The first of these mentioned was Rooney. Elsewhere it mentioned Newcastle's sponsors, Northern Rock, are clients and it was claimed on Saturday Newcastle have recently received additional funding specifically for the Rooney transfer.
It is understood Newcastle's pursuit of Rooney will not be deflected by Everton's rebuff and the offer remains on the table this morning.
Rooney resumed jogging yesterday for the first time since breaking the metatarsal in his foot in England's Euro 2004 quarter-final defeat by Portugal in June. He has since become deeply upset by allegations, backed up by closed-circuit television pictures, that he has visited brothels in Liverpool. The fall-out from those stories is understood to have persuaded him a move away from Merseyside might benefit his career. Even so, he had privately harboured hopes of joining Manchester United rather than moving to Tyneside.
However, Manchester United chief executive David Gill has ruled out signing Wayne Rooney in the near future, insisting such a move would be "bad business" and admitted the club cannot compete with Chelsea in the transfer market.
Gill says United have no intention of getting into debt just to buy a player and they are likely to wait until the next transfer window in January at the earliest before making a move. His comments, reported in the Manchester Evening News, were made to a meeting of Shareholders United before United's win over Norwich on Saturday.
Newcastle's bid could not have come at a more inopportune moment for Everton. Kenwright is embroiled in a boardroom struggle with the director Paul Gregg for control, a split which has done much to frustrate attempts to pin Rooney down to committing his future to the club. The impresario is attempting to smooth a £20 million Russian injection into the club to eat into debts and provide David Moyes with transfer funds.