Rooney biography reveals Dalglish role in deal with agent

(GETTY IMAGES)

The unofficial biography of Wayne Rooney that the player's agent, Paul Stretford, tried to ban has provided the most detailed published evidence yet of Kenny Dalglish's part in persuading him to join Stretford's Proactive agency.

Rooney's Gold, by the investigative journalist John Sweeney, the publication of which was delayed three years ago after an intervention by Rooney's lawyers Schillings, provides a detailed analysis of the exchanges at Warrington Crown Court in 2004, when three people stood accused of blackmailing Stretford into paying compensation for having made Rooney his client.

The court transcript details how Stretford introduced Rooney to the late Liverpool solicitor Kevin Dooley, who had been under investigation for his part in an alleged fraud by which other people's money found its way to a conman known as "Long John" Silver. Dooley was struck off by a Solicitors' disciplinary tribunal. But the book also chronicles the moment at the blackmail trial when Rooney's father, Wayne Snr, acknowledged that a telephone call from Dalglish was instrumental in persuading Rooney to leave the agent Peter McIntosh and join Proactive – several months before the then Everton player's contract with McIntosh had been due to expire.

It took intense questioning from Lord Carlisle QC to elicit Rooney Snr's disclosure that Dalglish was representing Proactive when he made the telephone call. "He wanted to talk to us about going to another agency," Rooney Snr said. "Was it his agency?" Lord Carlisle asked. "Well possibly, yes," Rooney snr replied. Dalglish declined to testify at the blackmail case, which ultimately collapsed. He had two million shares, worth £860,000 at their peak.

Stretford is understood to have been considering whether the publication of Sweeney's book, which details his long, complex and unflattering recent legal history, might have been prevented, though since many of the Stretford exchanges in the book are a matter of public record, it is legally safe in its final version.

Paradoxically, a book Stretford was so opposed to has actually gone some way to debunking one of the most abiding legends about Rooney: that he had sex with a Liverpool prostitute, Patricia Tierney, otherwise known as the "Auld Slapper". Tierney's libel case against The Sun collapsed in January 2007, though, as Sweeney points out, it only did so because she had been discredited as a witness. Ms Tierney has always maintained that she was not a prostitute but a receptionist at the Diva's club, where Rooney was alleged to have met her.

Meanwhile, Fabio Capello rejected the chance to distance himself from the Internazionale coach's position yesterday, indicating only that he would abide by his order to England players not to be distracted by transfer talk. "I don't want to talk about these things, I don't read the papers," said Capello. "I've asked that my players are not distracted by transfer market interferences during our preparation and the World Cup, and that applies to me as well."

Capello provided his first firm hint that Gareth Barry's recuperation is well ahead of expectations and he will travel to South Africa. "The tests and scans of two days ago say that his ankle is doing well, much better than what we had thought. The recovery times will be much shorter. We are very hopeful," he told Sky Italia.