Wayne Rooney Testimonial Will Be 1st All-Premier League Facebook Live Stream

Manchester United and Everton will play out the first ever all-Premier League clash to be streamed live on Facebook when they face off for Wayne Rooney's testimonial match on Wednesday at Old Trafford.

Per BBC Sport's Simon Stone, the match will be available to the social network's 1.7 billion users via Rooney's and United's Facebook pages.

Stone added that the game between Rooney's only two professional clubs will mark 12 years at United since he moved from Goodison Park for £27 million in 2004.


Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Per PA Sport (via ESPN FC), all proceeds will go to the Wayne Rooney Foundation and will then be distributed to the 30-year-old's four chosen charities—the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Claire House Hospice, Alder Hey Children's Hospital and the Manchester United Foundation.

The Red Devils' captain expressed his delight that the match will be streamed across the world via Facebook, per PA Sport:

"I am delighted that through this agreement with Facebook my testimonial game will be streamed globally on both the Wayne Rooney and Manchester United Facebook pages. It will be the first time this will have happened and will hopefully raise awareness of the Foundation and increase donations."

Wayne Rooney Testimonial: Manchester United vs. Everton Date Time TV Info Live Stream Wednesday, August 3 8 p.m. BST/3 p.m. ET Live on BT Sport Showcase (Free), BT Sport 1 BT Sport website, Facebook

BBC Sport

Wednesday's clash will be new manager Jose Mourinho's first match in charge of United at Old Trafford.


Summer signings Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Eric Bailly are also all expected to make their home debuts.

Mourinho is the fourth permanent club manager Rooney has played under in his stellar career having worked with David Moyes at Everton and United, Louis van Gaal for the last two seasons and, of course, Sir Alex Ferguson.

The legendary Scotsman paid tribute to Rooney ahead of his testimonial, per the official United programme (via Sam Wallace in the Telegraph):

He [Rooney] was an exciting signing [in 2004]. It was fairly shortly after I’d got rid of the idea of retiring and changed my mind, and I had to rethink about how we were going to take the club forward.

When you make the decision to retire, you stop thinking, but once I decided to stay I started thinking again and it was really centred around bringing energy back into the team by looking at young players.

Of course there was Cristiano Ronaldo, then there was Rooney, and it was a fantastic period. The two of them were unbelievable.

Wayne came in as a first-team player right away, even though he was only 18, and he’s gone on to play for Manchester United for 12 years, which is very difficult in the present day.

I always think that great players can play in any era. Bobby Charlton would have been a great player today and Wayne Rooney would have been a great player back then.

Full Time DEVILS provided Rooney's impressive record so far at Old Trafford since making switch from Everton as an 18-year-old:

Wayne Rooney's testimonial tomorrow..

This is his #mufc record as it stands! 👌 pic.twitter.com/69jDv0ftEj

— Full Time DEVILS (@FullTimeDEVILS) August 2, 2016

He will be eager to add further goals and trophies to his career haul in the 2016-17 campaign, which opens for United on August 14 when they face Bournemouth following Sunday August 7's Community Shield clash with Premier League champions Leicester City.
Read the Original