Rooney´s agent handed 18-month ban

AFP - 9 July 2008 17:05

Manchester United´s English forward Wayne Rooney takes part in a training session at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on the eve of the Champions league final football match against Chelsea, 2008. Rooney´s agent Paul Stretford has been fined 300,000 pounds (377,000 euros) and banned from working as a football agent for 18 months by an English FA disciplinary commission.

LONDON (AFP) - Wayne Rooney's agent Paul Stretford was fined 300,000 pounds (377,000 euros) and banned from working as a football agent for 18 months by an English FA disciplinary commission on Wednesday.

Streford, founder of Proactive Sports Management, was punished after being charged by the FA following his troubled appointment as Rooney's agent in 2002.

Seven of the nine charges brought by the FA against Stretford for breaches of the FIFA players' agent regulations were proved.

The charges included failing to protect Rooney's interests and failing to respect the rights of third parties.

Stretford was also hit with an improper conduct charge in relation to the "making of false and/or misleading witness statements to police and giving false and/or misleading testimony to Warrington Crown Court" in a case about the circumstances of how he came to represent the England striker.

Stretford will launch an immediate appeal after describing the decision as "a travesty". The ban will not come into force until after the appeal, while the second nine months of the suspension will not be invoked if he is found to have not broken any other regulations.