B iggest stars of Manchester United are apparently unfollowing team-mate Mason Greenwood on social media after his arrest over allegations of rape and assault, with nine members of the first team squad keeping their distance today.
United’s most high-profile players, including David de Gea, Cristiano Ronaldo and Paul Pogba have shunned Greenwood on Instagram, despite following other squad members.
Marcus Rashford, Edinson Cavani, Fred and Jesse Lingard are also among those not following the rising star, who is at the centre of shocking allegations that he attacked an 18-year-old student.
But club captain Harry Maguire and Bruno Fernandes are in a group of 18 squad members who have so far maintained their support for the young forward on the social media platform, Sportsmail can reveal.
Greenwood, 20, was questioned into the night by police and remained in custody early today after horrifying images and audio circulated on social media
The images appeared to show the woman bloodied and bruised and the audio included a voice recording of a conversation between a man and a woman, dated October last year, which purportedly chronicled the woman being attacked.
Greenwood, who earns £75,000-a-week, has been suspended by Manchester United until further notice.
Within hours of the messages emerging and spreading across social media, his club put out a statement saying it was aware of them and they were making inquiries ‘to establish the full circumstances’.
It added: ‘Manchester United does not condone violence of any kind.’
United then went further and said the player would ‘not return to training or play matches until further notice’.
Manchester United’s squad has shown signs of disunity in a difficult season and they appear to be evident again in the team’s reaction to news of Greenwood’s arrest.
Some of the biggest names are prominent in not following Greenwood.
Ronaldo follows 498 people on his Instagram account, including Diogo Dalot, David de Gea, Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard, but not Greenwood.
Paul Pogba is following Kurt Zouma, Romelu Lukaku, Alexandre Lacazette, Mario Balotelli and Jadon Sancho among the 157 people he is following, but the United youngster is not among them this morning.
Similarly, Marcus Rashford boasts Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw and on-loan Anthony Martial in his list of the 171 he is following, but not Greenwood.
However, the majority of United’s squad are still following the England international 24 hours after his arrest.
As well as the skipper and Fernandes, team members, including, Victor Lindelof, Eric Bailly, Raphael Varanne, Luke Shaw, Bruno Fernandes, Donny Van de Beek, Scott McTominay and Jadon Sancho are following the suspended starlet’s Insta account.
Events have moved rapidly since the social media posts prompted police action on Sunday.
A spokesman for Greater Manchester police said they had launched an investigation after being made ‘aware of online social media images and videos posted by a woman reporting incidents of physical violence’.
He added: ‘Following inquiries we can confirm a man in his 20s has since been arrested on suspicion of rape and assault. He remains in custody for questioning. Inquiries are ongoing.’
Forensic officers also arrived at Greenwood’s £2million mansion in the upmarket village of Bowdon, Cheshire, yesterday evening.
The allegedly incriminating posts were online for just a few hours before being deleted.
The woman’s father told the Daily Mail his daughter believed her Instagram account had been hacked.
Speaking from his £1million home in an upmarket Cheshire village, the company director, 61, described the allegations as ‘dreadful’.
‘I’m just coming to terms with it,’ he said. ‘As a father you don’t want to know things like this are happening to your daughter. She is devastated. But she is safe. It is in the hands of the police now.’
Meanwhile, the woman’s older sister told the Sun she was shocked by the news and described the audio clip shared online as ‘disturbing’.
She added: ‘She’s a lovely young girl and no one deserves that. If there isn’t a full investigation by the police then there is something wrong.
I put my trust in them to do the right thing […] I just hope that my sister gets the justice that she deserves – that’s all that matters.’
Campaigners and women’s charities also welcomed the investigation into the ‘shocking’ allegations.
Former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal said the pictures, and particularly the voice note, were ‘shocking in the extreme’. ‘Manchester United must deal with it but it is also clearly a police matter,’ he said.
Greenwood was born in Bradford in October 2001. At four, he won a local newspaper’s modelling competition and was awarded a £50 voucher and a year with an agency.
Two years later, he joined Manchester United’s famed academy, hoping to follow in the footsteps of previous graduates such as David Beckham and Paul Scholes, having attracted attention by scoring ten goals on his debut for a local youth team.
In March 2019 he became the youngest footballer to play for United in the Champions League, aged 17.
Greenwood has made 129 appearances for the Old Trafford club, scoring 35 goals. He has the number 11 shirt previously worn by Ryan Giggs.
England manager Gareth Southgate gave him his first cap at the age of just 18 in 2020 – a substitute appearance in a 1-0 away win against Iceland.
However, he was sent home in disgrace following the match after he and team-mate Phil Foden, also 20, broke coronavirus rules by sneaking two Icelandic students into the team hotel.
They were both fined by police in Reykjavik and Greenwood apologised, saying he only had himself to blame for the ‘huge mistake’.
Southgate – who described the pair as ‘naive’ – said that Greenwood would not play for England until 2022 after he was forced to withdraw from the squad for last year’s Euros with injury.
Weeks after the Iceland incident, he was spoken to by Man United officials amid concerns he was not turning up to training on time.
