/ 1 September 2004

Man United hire teenage star

Wayne Rooney became a Manchester United player on Tuesday despite a last-minute hold-up caused by the state of his broken foot.

About 10 hours after he first went to Manchester to finalise the deal on transfer deadline day, United finally announced a deal reportedly worth £27-million to Everton.

But Rooney needed two visits to Manchester hospital for checks on how his broken foot was healing.

He suffered a broken metatarsal bone in his right foot playing against Portugal at Euro 2004 in June and is out of action for at least another month. — Sapa-AP