Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy’s Wives Are Spending Over $620,000 Each to Fight in Court
Wayne Rooney is a Premier League icon and former MLS superstar. Jamie Vardy, longtime Leicester City striker, was seen as Rooney’s sideman when both played for England’s national team. The two seemed like friends who performed well together. The problem for any English soccer player tends to stem from what happens off the field, however.
In particular, the UK’s notoriously nasty tabloid press makes a point of mining football clubs for drama. Through the incentives left out by that media institution, Rooney and Vardy are in a sense forced to butt heads. But this is no simple trash-talking dispute. It’s a full-on lawsuit between the stars’ wives, Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy.
An accusation sends Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy to court
Depending on one’s perspective, the best way to follow up on the story of a squabble between two soccer spouses is in The Sun. In this case, however, the tacky tabloid is at the center of the conflagration. According to the paper itself — as covered here in the more sober CNN — it starts with Coleen Rooney noticing personal details consistently leaking to the Sun.
She narrowed it down to someone sharing her private Instagram posts. So she started tracking who was looking at her content, and when. Eventually, she narrowed the leaker down to a culprit. It was her friend, Jamie Vardy’s wife Rebekah Vardy.
Being in the inner circle of the Premier League community means being close to wealthy players. It was somewhat of a shock to Coleen to find that a fellow player’s wife would cross that particular line. She went public, with the post above. If this was the right move to make remains to be seen.
Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy’s involvement in the case
The two wives, and by proxy their famous husbands, are now locked in a legal battle over the situation. Rebekah is the claimant, against defendant Coleen, according to coverage in Insider. The case is over the question of whether Coleen damaged Rebekah’s reputation unfairly.
Both parties came in ready to fight. The two have spent upwards of $620,000 apiece on the case. High-powered U.K. law firms, according to The Sun, are set to drag this out rather than settle.
The stress has reached the husbands of the two plaintiffs. While they’ve both declined to comment due to the ongoing case, their actions are telling. The Sun — tawdry but generally well-sourced — pointed out that Vardy and Rooney no longer follow each other on Instagram. Vardy also “liked” Rebekah’s Twitter response denying her involvement in leaked stories.
When was the last time Rooney and Vardy played together?
For sports fans more interested in the impact on the soccer side of things, there is not yet much to report. The two played together on the English national team, but both won’t be back for the next time around, according to Metro. It’ll be in the Premier League where the two have a slim possibility of meeting face-to-face.
As the BBC reports, Rooney signed with Derby County FC. But he won’t run into Vardy’s Leicester City FC, which plays a tier below in the EFL Championship. With Rooney in the Championship club at least through 2022, an awkward run-in between the two doesn’t look to be coming anytime soon.
The two last played together in June 2015. Vardy was put in to replace Rooney (via the BBC) for the last 15 minutes of a match against the Republic of Ireland. In what was perhaps an omen of things to come, the two were rumored to not get along. Sky Sports reported that their coach insisted the two were actually fast friends.
