Plymouth scrap documentary about relegation fight after Rooney’s exit

Plymouth have scrapped plans to make a documentary about their battle against relegation from the Championship after Wayne Rooney’s departure this week.

Filming was paused last month as a result of the downturn in results that eventually led to Rooney’s exit and there are no plans to resume.

Although Plymouth signed off on the project when it was announced in November, it is understood to have largely been driven by Rooney and his advisers. The former England captain has close links with the documentary’s production company, Lorton Entertainment, that made the one-off feature-length programme called Rooney shown on Amazon Prime Video three years ago.

Plymouth had hoped to raise their global profile and secure a windfall by selling the documentary to a streaming service such as Amazon or Netflix, but decided during their current 10-game winless run that it was in danger of becoming a distraction. After filming at the club’s Harpers Park training ground began in October, Lorton’s camera crew were given access to only two Championship matches before being told to take a break.

Lorton also produced Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, the documentary about her court battle with Rebekah Vardy, for Disney+. One of Lorton’s owners, Kenny Shepherd, is a shareholder in the agency that has managed Rooney’s career since he was a teenager at Everton, ­Triple S Sports. Plymouth declined to comment.

Plymouth won one of their last 14 matches under Rooney to fall to the bottom of the Championship before he departed after 25 games. The director of football, Neil Dewsnip, is also expected to leave because he has been blamed by the board for an appointment that failed.

Dewsnip joined five years ago and presided over their rise from League Two to the Championship under the managers Ryan Lowe and Steven Schumacher, but his recent appointments have been less successful. Ian Foster was given 16 games last season before Dewsnip and the first-team coach, Kevin Nancekivell, took over in April to save the club from relegation.

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Nancekivell and the captain, Joe Edwards, were put in temporary charge of the team that drew 2-2 with Bristol City on Wednesday but are not seen as candidates for the permanent job. Schumacher is a short-priced favourite to return 13 months after leaving for Stoke, who sacked him in September.

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