Wayne Rooney has denied removing a reference to Manchester United from his Twitter biography, stating that it was never there in the first place.

It was reported earlier that the England striker had deleted the term "Manchester United player" from his verified Twitter account.

The 27-year-old said in a statement on his official website: "There's a load of rubbish being written about me changing twitter bio saying I have deleted Manchester United from it.

"I have never deleted Manchester United from the bio whatever the papers are saying because it was never on there. All that happened was that I was asked by Nike to add @nikeuk to it – the same as many other sportspeople they sponsor.

"Funny, no-one's written about that though! That change was made THREE weeks ago and yet people are talking about it as if it's something that was put up yesterday."

Rooney has been linked to a move away from Old Trafford this summer.