Wayne Rooney has revealed surreal details about playing golf with Donald Trump after giving the former president’s son football lessons.
The Manchester United and England legend said the unlikely pair came together during his time at Major League Soccer side DC United, for whom he played in 2018 and 2019 and later managed.
Trump‘s son, Barron, played for the club’s academy – while Rooney had been a guest at the White House in 2018.
“[He’d] asked me to give his son football lessons, and [Barron] said, ‘Do you want to see my dad?'” Rooney told Gary Neville‘s YouTube channel, The Overlap.
“He took me up into the Oval Office and then from there, his PA was just texting – ‘Do you want to play a few holes [of golf?]'”
The 38-year-old former striker suggested the game, which happened at the Trump National Golf Club near DC in 2019, was a surreal experience.
“The maddest thing about it was we had [former New York mayor Rudy] Giuliani in the buggy behind us,” Rooney said.
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“Then there were about 50-100 golf buggies that were all security. There was a boat in the lake with snipers, there were snipers in the bushes, and I was like, ‘What’s going on here?!'”
Some details of the episode had previously been revealed by former Manchester United masseur and friend of Rooney, Rod Thornley.
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He told the Under the Cosh podcast that he and Rooney had been “steaming” [drunk] on the day in question – and that the record goalscorer had failed to correct Trump on his recollection of a recent march in which he had scored a hat-trick.
“‘This guy, this guy, he scored five goals for DC United’,” Thornley said Trump began telling others in the group.
“And I’m looking at Wazza, going ‘go on, correct him’.”
He said Trump then asked Rooney to confirm his account, saying: “Didn’t you, Wayne? Five goals, Wayne!” – to which, he said, Rooney replied: “Yeah, yeah, I did.”
“I’m like, ‘you lying b*****d, tell him the truth’,” Thornley said, while laughing.
