PLAYERS mouthing off at their manager and vice versa is the life-blood of the tabloid newspaper. But football’s more garrulous personalities could be steering into trouble with the libel lawyers as soon as they commit their more extreme thoughts about their colleagues to hardback covers in their (usually) ghost-written autobiographies.
Wayne Rooney looks as though he will provide the first high-profile case after David Moyes, the manager at Everton, the striker’s former club, took exception to descriptions of their relationship in Rooney’s autobiography, My Story So Far. But Rooney may not be the last, according to Sarah Webb, the head of media defamation at Russell Jones & Walker, the solicitors based in the City of London.
“Players having spats with their managers have always been on the back pages,” she said. “But things change when the same comments are used in a book. A book is permanent and people in sport are getting wise to the fact that they can hit back with a libel action if they feel they have been wronged. Publishers want controversy and the days when a manager or player shrugs off criticism may be over.”
With just about every player of note rushing to the publishers — Ashley Cole, as you may have noticed, and Frank Lampard are among those with books on the shelves now — the libel lawyers should be rubbing their hands with glee.