Rooney is 'bad example' for youth

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood said young people lacked suitable role models

Wayne Rooney has been condemned in the House of Commons for setting a bad example to children.

Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood said the England and Manchester United forward is undermining authority when he challenges referees' decisions.

"A four-year-old sees how Wayne Rooney goes up to a referee and starts swearing at them, and thinks that's the way you deal with authority," he said.

He believes the Premier League should introduce a sin-bin as in Rugby League.

The sin-bin is the bench where all players who have committed a yellow card offence sit out of the game for 10 minutes.

During a parliamentary debate about knife crime, Mr Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth East, said young people lacked suitable role models.

I think footballers get too much of a bad name Culture Secretary and MP for Leigh, Andy Burnham

"There are many people - many young people - who perhaps come from broken families, who perhaps come from situations where there is an absence of role models, who now look up to these people," he said.

"We all play a part in the way our society is formed - and we've got to bear in mind that if we are in the public, people will pick up what we say and perhaps follow how we do it."

He added that such behaviour against authority was one of what he called "the building blocks which leads these individuals to a legacy of crime."

But the Culture Secretary and MP for Leigh, Andy Burnham, defended footballers.

"Players in the public eye do have a responsibility to think of those young people and behave properly," he said.

"But generally I think footballers get too much of a bad name at times.

"The vast majority of them do a lot of good work and people should remember the good things they do as well."