by Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney has been charged by the FA for using 60% of his vocabulary in a single outburst after scoring a premier league hat-trick against West Ham on Saturday.
Rooney used only his favourite words in the outburst, even repeating some of them, prompting the charge which could see him banned for two games.
An FA spokesperson said, “If the first thing you do when a camera is put in front of you is use all of your words in one go, then any follow up questions are likely to be extremely tedious for anyone watching.”
“It was a shameful way to behave. We want the kids watching to become interesting media entities, taking their time and constructing meaningful sentences – not to spout the very first thing that comes into their heads.”
“We are willing to offer Wayne some coaching, and hopefully within a year or two we could see his vocabulary extend to perhaps seven or eight easily recognisable words.”
Wayne Rooney Offensive Language charge
Rooney has until 6pm today to contest the charge, though he will be required to demonstrate the sort of vocabulary that renders the charge moot.
“If he appeals, we’ll want to see proof that his on camera outburst wasn’t actually using 60% of vocabulary, but significantly less than that.”
“And I’m not talking about him reading a pre-prepared list of words that someone gave him – it will be a proper test, requiring him to construct logical phrases recognisable to most human beings.”
“If he can do that, we’ll let him off, obviously.”
