article: The testimonial, usually held to honour a player's long service at a club or to mark retirement, are supposed to be light-hearted, non-competitive affairs that raise millions of pounds for charity. But that has not always been the case. From celebrities and brawls to handsome pay-offs and injuries, BBC Sport takes a look at the dos and don'ts of hosting a testimonial. Testimonials began as a way to set up a player for retirement, back when wages paled in comparison to those today, with money made from the game paid to the player. Former Arsenal and England goalkeeper David Seaman made £600,000 tax free from his match in 2001. The recent trend has been for a player to donate the proceeds to charity, which began with former Republic of Ireland and Sunderland striker Niall Quinn. Quinn gave an estimated £1m raised at his benefit match to charity. Rooney has followed suit and said proceeds from the game on 3 August will be split between the NSPCC, Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Claire House Children's Hospice and Manchester United's own foundation. Former Coventry defender David Busst suffered one of the worst injuries in football in 1996 against Manchester United, which forced him into retirement aged 29. The Sky Blues granted Busst a testimonial match against United to benefit him and his family. The match was memorable for being Eric Cantona's last game for United, the Frenchman retiring from football two days later. Didier Drogba, retired Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher, Lothar Matthaeus, Andriy Shevchenko and Philipp Lahm all turned out for former Germany captain Michael Ballack's testimonial in 2013. Cristiano Ronaldo could be returning to Old Trafford for Rooney's testimonial while the England striker made his return to Goodison Park for Duncan Ferguson's testimonial in August. Then there were the stellar line-ups involved in Portugal legend Deco's benefit match in 2014 at the Estadio do Dragao. The match was between Porto's 2004 Champions League winners and Barcelona's 2006 European champions, both teams that Deco had played for and players on show included Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto'o, and Edgar Davids. But the stars are not always guaranteed to turn up. George Best reportedly snubbed Manchester United team-mate Bobby Charlton's testimonial against Celtic in 1972 and spent the night drinking. The match at Old Trafford still attracted a crowd of 60,538, which was then a British record for a benefit match. By August 2012, full-back Tony Hibbert had played 308 times for Everton, but had never scored for the Toffees. He made amends in his testimonial, scoring a stunning free-kick in a 4-1 win over AEK Athens. And still after 15 seasons it remains his only goal for the club. "The lads were saying to me in the changing room that it was like a fairytale," he said afterwards. Former England striker Alan Shearer had injured his knee three weeks before his testimonial in 2006 so could not play a full role but he kicked the first and last ball of the match. The Premier League's all-time top scorer came off the bench to score a
summary: When Wayne Rooney starts planning his testimonial game for next summer he may want to heed a few lessons from previous benefit matches.