He continues in the wake of that student withdrawing his allegation:
"The problem for Wayne Rooney is that you've had George Best, Paul Gascoigne and then David Beckham.
"But now they're not here anymore. So people are looking to feed off someone new. And that person is Wayne Rooney. It's unfair but we understand what goes on.
"We've never had a problem with Wayne since he joined us. He's a fantastic lad, he's a different class of boy. We have experience of protecting young players here like we did with Ryan Giggs and that is exactly what we will do with Wayne.
"If you're standing in a bar having a drink with a few mates and a guy comes up shouting and bawling at you, and you ignore him, what more can you do?" Ferguson
"Wayne is still only 19. What's he going to do, sit in the house all day for the rest of his life and not go out? What happened doesn't surprise me. Human beings are not stupid. People go into nightclubs, they see a footballer and they think 'There's a golden pot here, there's an earner'.
"That's the sad part about it. The guy who alleged this incident with Wayne then turned up at a police station with a reporter. What's going on in this world? The boy should have been charged with [wasting police time]. The club had CCTV which showed nothing happened. It's unbelievable."