Scandal may be disaster for Alex Ferguson

IT ALL goes some way to explaining why Wayne Rooney struggled to kick a football in a straight line for so long.

And why Alex Ferguson's been even grumpier than usual.
They will have both known for some time that the excrement was about to hit the air-conditioning.
Known that Rooney, like some other England players, has been hiding behind a High Court super-injunction to prevent his latest shenanigans coming out.
Now they have, it is not so much a dilemma for Fabio Capello as Fergie.
Yes, the England boss is faced with a media feeding frenzy when he would rather focus on tomorrow's Euro 2012 qualifier in Switzerland.
But that's a short-term problem. For Ferguson it's long-term.
The Manchester United boss knows if things are going well for Rooney off the pitch then everything is usually fine for his side on it. But if the trip-switch to his star player's mental balance is now fully operated, it will have enormous ramifications for his team.
Especially if wife Coleen, tired of having to have eyes in the back of her head, decides to follow the divorce route taken by Cheryl Cole rather than accepting it as part of being married to a £150,000-a-week star like John Terry's equally-humiliated partner Toni Poole.
Yes, there have been rumours for months about Rooney but even Fergie will have been stunned by some of the revelations. Stories of sportsmen and hookers are hardly new - in the last year alone we've had Tiger Woods, Peter Crouch, Franck Ribery etc.
The access-all-area passes these girls seem to have to places like Manchester's five-star Lowry Hotel will be of much concern to Fergie, seeing the venues are so popular with his players and obvious settings for a tabloid sting.
Then there's the claim Rooney, alleged to have run up £700,000 gambling debts in five months to February 2006, paid for services given with a £1,000 gambling chip.
Yes, he can easily afford a flutter (money is so inconsequential he can even stump up £200 to send hotel staff out for fags).
But when you have a history of chronic, impetuous gambling, one bet tends to lead to another, larger one.
Yet Ferguson will be even more perturbed about the revelations of a seemingly wild party at Rio Ferdinand's Italian restaurant, Rosso.
The first task he faced on arrival at Old Trafford all those years ago was to rid the club of its drinking culture.
This he completed successfully.
Then in December 2007 came the players' infamous no-WAGS Christmas party which started at lunchtime at the Manchester 235 casino, continued at the Great John Street hotel before ending some 17 hours later amid tales of 'debauchery' and girls complaining about being treated like 'cattle' (though they were not exactly driven through the hotel doors with branding irons).
Ferguson raged and banned any future Christmas shindigs. Now what does he hear?
That girls from, er, escort agencies were guests at Ferdinand's restaurant on a night whistle-blowing strumpet Jenny Thompson claimed: "The whole team were there - and they were all very drunk."
Classy bird she is, she was then led 'down the stairs' by a bevvied-up Rooney as Michael Owen apparently 'looked at him in disgust'.
Which is always good for team spirit - as was her story that, at another party, Rooney muttered 'f****** w*****' as Cristiano Ronaldo walked past. Of course, it might have been 'winker'.
She then drops Rio in it again by complaining to Rooney the England skipper always appeared rude. Rooney is said to have replied: "He's always like that when he's had a bit to drink."

Finally, we have the scarcely-believable story Rooney asked her to join him on a United tour, saying she could stay at the TEAM hotel! No wonder she ended up saying: "He believes he's invincible, untouchable." Not any more, he won't. So now what for Fergie?
He obviously wouldn't have been impressed with recent pictures of Rooney smoking and urinating in the street outside a Manchester nightclub though Rooney, obviously, is hardly the first to be caught short.
And Fergie would have comforted himself with the thought Coleen was there. He was always trying to get night owl Dwight Yorke to settle down - stating the case of Paul Scholes, the devoted father, married to his first girlfriend and a man whose idea of a riotous night out was a couple of pints.
He obviously hoped marriage to a similar childhood sweetheart would be the making of Rooney. Now this.
How does Ferguson react? Does he read him the riot act - as well as calling in Ferdinand to put a stop to the partying at his restaurant?
Does he double his number of spies at the Lowry and the Manchester 235 casino? Or, knowing the flak his star player will be getting at home, does he put a fatherly arm round him?
Tony Blair recently revealed he once asked Ferguson for advice when he was having Gordon Brown trouble.
Blair asked: "What would you do if your best player won't do what you want and just does his own thing?"
Ferguson replied: "Chuck him out." That is hardly likely to happen here. Without wanting to sound too much like an agony aunt, it's time for Rooney (who probably thinks tarts don't count) to come to a few of his own decisions.
To get his act together for his wife, his club and, yes, even for himself.
Failing that, Coleen could have a word with the Gurkha said to have looked after the Rooney mansion during the World Cup. And ask to borrow his freshly-sharpened Kukri.