Hoddle: Rooney shouldn’t lose England captaincy

Daniel Storey

Glenn Hoddle believes that Wayne Rooney made a mistake, but should not lose the England captaincy.

Rooney has been widely criticised for drinking until 5am before England training, with The Sun serialising the story all week.

Rooney originally apologised for the incident, but has since attacked the media for disrespecting him.

Hoddle believes Rooney went too far, but should not be too heavily punished for the incident.

“As with Wayne, Teddy was an experienced member of the squad,” Hoddle told the Daily Mail. “As such, I felt he should have been more sensible.

“As England captain and the most experienced player in the squad, Wayne knows the responsibilities he has.

“But having picked up a minor injury on Friday night it was unlikely that he was going to play on Tuesday; as such he had another six days before a game. And he was on a night off.

“The sensible and classy thing to have done would be to drop into the wedding, have a couple of photos taken with the bride and groom and then go to bed. In staying around until later he has made a bad judgement call.

“It’s right that he apologises. But it’s not a case of having let people down — he’ll be annoyed that he’s let himself down.

“But I don’t think there’s any question that he loses the captaincy over this. For one, we don’t know how much he drank. Photos can be deceptive, and, by all accounts, he was fit for training the next day.

“Players drink much less now than when I was a player and that’s positive.