Marcus Rashford went on a huge drinking session in Belfast three days before Manchester United’s FA Cup tie with Newport.
According to The Sun, “Rashford went on a 12-hour tequila bender before passing out at 3am, then called in sick hours later”.
Consequently, the English international did not participate in training, missed out on the matchday squad and reportedly was fined £650,000 by the club.
According to the newspaper, a local waitress, Sarah Adair, who “joined the Manchester United ace on his booze bender, told a story of how he was ‘on a mission to get drunk'”.
She claimed that the United attacker spent hours chugging down tequilas and cocktails before collapsing on a hotel bed, fully clothed, at 3am in the morning.
The forward was scheduled to make a 7am private jet flight back to Manchester, which he made, but was evidently in no state to take part in the scheduled training session on Friday.
The restaurant employee told the story of how she had served the 26 year old lunch and then was invited out later that night.
She claimed that a “weird” night out followed which culminated in him passing out fully clothed.
The young lady revealed: “I’m not surprised he missed training the next day given how late he got to bed and how much he’d had to drink. He must’ve known he wasn’t going to be in any fit state to play football”.
She told The Sun that Rashford did not touch any food except bread and was focussed entirely on the tequila, downing shots and drinking cocktails.
Later that night, she met the United star in an Italian restaurant, where he had booked out the top floor to play his favourite rap music.
Rashford brought his own bottle of tequila to the restaurant and Sarah recalled, “I pulled up a chair and sat next to him and we all chatted”.
“Marcus was confident but also seemed a bit shy. It’s as though he doesn’t really know who he is. He gives out the vibe he thinks, ‘I’m a footballer, I’ve got loads of money and can do whatever I want’. His friends treated him like he was a god”.
She claims that the forward confessed to her that, “I’ve been drinking all day”.
Sarah added: “They were still drinking tequila and passing around a bottle of Patron and he also ordered a round of limoncello. He was clearly on a mission to get drunk”.
One of Rashford’s friends supposedly reminded him he had training the following morning, but the player insisted he wanted to party.
The United attacker, who was clearly drunk even before he went clubbing, demanded that his entourage went out with him. Rashford then got into a fight with one of the girls he was with, who was French. She was accusing him of kissing another girl. She apparently told Sarah, “I’m so angry because he thinks he can do what he wants”.
A source confirmed that the group left the club at 1.15am but that they kept on partying until 2am, when eventually, Rashford’s friends decided he’d had too much to drink.
Sarah claims she accompanied the striker, alongside his friend group, to his hotel room, but the French woman was making a scene and trying to get inside the room. The waitress says Rashford scooped up the girl’s belongings and threw them out in the hallway as his security then escorted her away.
“He was so drunk at this point that he picked up his own bag and dropped it and all this cash fell out. It was all £20 notes and big wads of it. I reckon there was between £8,000 and £10,000 cash”, Sarah told The Sun.
“Then he falls back into the wall and I have to kind of scoop him up and on to the bed. He was fully dressed and I reckon he just passed out like that. He didn’t even get under the covers”.
Reflecting on the experience the Belfast waitress claimed, “he was clearly on a mission to have a big night. It’s not like it wasn’t planned from the start. I don’t know how he didn’t realise he would be caught out.
“Everyone was taking pictures of him during the night out”.
These details will be incredibly worrying for the club and manager. Anybody can make a mistake, but the premeditated and care-free approach described is a big concern for a player who has admitted he has struggled with mental health issues in the past.
Furthermore, how a professional athlete can consume such quantities of alcohol during the season, never mind a day before a training session is genuinely terrifying and speaks to the work INEOS have on their plate to fix the culture at Old Trafford.
