Future News: Man United plot transfer ruse to trick Wayne Rooney into staying

Manchester United plan to trick want-away striker Wayne Rooney into staying with the Premier League champions by selling him to themselves. New manager David Moyes announced the ploy days after stating that Rooney is not for sale while failing to confirm that the player wants to stay in his first press conference with the club.

"We don't want to sell Wayne Rooney and that's that," Moyes told reporters. "So I've come up with a compromise that will suit both parties. We're confident that it doesn't matter to him so much who he's sold to, just as long as he's sold. With that in mind, we're going to sell him to ourselves for, let's say, £62 million and pretend he's gone to a new club. He'll be happy about the large fee and since Sir Alex [Ferguson] is gone and we've got a new backroom staff is in place, he probably won't realize he's still at Manchester United until after we've won the league again. Because, well, Wayne isn't exactly the smartest lemur in the car dealership now, is he?"

Before retiring, former manager Sir Alex Ferguson revealed that Rooney made his second transfer request in three years near the end of last season. But Moyes, who managed Rooney at Everton from 2002 to 2004, has experience in dealing with the double hair transplant recipient's off the pitch games. In 2008, Moyes sued Rooney for libel over claims the England striker made about Moyes in his autobiography. Rooney eventually settled the case by apologizing and paying damages and legal costs to Moyes.

"If Wayne catches on to our little gambit, I've instructed all the other players to tell him that Monaco bought the whole squad and that they're actually all in Monaco. That should be enough to confuse him and when that happens he'll stop asking questions and just go with it. So if he happens to say in an interview how happy he is to be playing for Monaco, please don't laugh until after he's left the room. With a little support from the press and fans, we can definitely pull this off."