Wayne Rooney was asked in a Reddit Q&A hosted by BBC Sport whether he could see himself back in the dugout. His answer was blunt.
“Probably not,” Rooney said.
“Of course, I’ve never closed doors and never say never, but at the moment, where I am now, where my head space is, I wouldn’t.”
The 40-year-old, who managed Derby County, DC United, Birmingham City and Plymouth Argyle before stepping away from coaching, also named the decision he most regrets from those years.
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“I think you always have regrets, and [I] reflect on what I’ve done. I think the biggest regret I have is the Birmingham City job, in terms of the timing of when I took over from John Eustace.”
Sacked at Birmingham after 83 days
Rooney’s coaching CV reads as a lesson in what happens when a playing legacy meets a Championship with no sentiment.
Birmingham dismissed him after 83 days and just two wins in 15 games. Plymouth Argyle then hired him for the 2024-25 Championship season and sacked him on 31 December 2024, with the club bottom of the table and winless in nine matches. In between the two English stints, he had a spell in charge of DC United in Major League Soccer, and before that oversaw a relegation and a 21-point deduction at Derby County.
Missing his kids’ football
Rooney had already telegraphed the mood in January this year on the Smith Bros YouTube channel, where he said the price paid for four managerial roles had been too high at home.
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“I wouldn’t put myself in situations like [when I lived] in DC, lived in Plymouth, lived in Birmingham, lived away and missed a lot of my kids’ football and stuff.”
“At the minute, I’m happy just doing the TV work.”
A new BBC quiz show fronted by Alex Brooker
The TV work keeps growing. Rooney signed a two-year Match of the Day contract with the BBC in July 2025, an agreement that put him at the centre of the corporation’s 2026 World Cup coverage this summer.
On 18 September 2026 the BBC announced a new visualised podcast called Can You Beat Wayne Rooney?, a weekly quiz format fronted by comedian Alex Brooker in which Rooney competes against guests from sport and entertainment.
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“Anyone who knows me knows I’m competitive, whether it’s on a football pitch, playing paddle or on a golf course and even rowing on the Hudson River,” Rooney said in the launch announcement.
“I don’t like losing.”
The show is set to launch on the BBC Sport Football YouTube channel, BBC iPlayer, BBC Sounds and major podcast platforms in autumn 2026.
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