WAYNE ROONEY, the England footballer, and Coleen McLoughlin, his childhood sweetheart, are to marry in the summer of 2008 after agreeing a deal worth more than £1.5m with the celebrity magazine Hello!

It is the most the magazine has paid for exclusive access to a celebrity wedding, beating the £1m paid to Eliza-beth Hurley this month for coverage of her celebrations in Britain and India.

Their popular appeal, or at least their financial pulling power, also exceeds that of David and Victoria Beckham, who received £900,000 from the rival OK! magazine for their wedding in Ireland in 1999. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas received a similar amount for their wedding in 2000.

The deal was finalised last week and also covers McLoughlin’s 21st birthday party at the end of this month. The couple, who got engaged on a petrol station forecourt in 2003, decided to go ahead after being impressed by the security arrangements around the Hurley wedding.

Sports sponsors and advertising agents are convinced that the couple have an appeal which far transcends their origins on a Croxteth council estate.

Rooney, 21, who signed a new £100,000-a-week contract with Man-chester United last November, has a £5m deal over 10 years with Nike and is the face of calorie-free Coke Zero.

McLoughlin has already demonstrated her own earning power. Last year she signed a £400,000 book deal for Welcome to My World, a story of her rise from being an ordinary schoolgirl to a style icon and cover girl.

Today it tops The Sunday Times best-seller list and it has outsold The Dangerous Book for Boys by more then three to one in the past week.

In it she tells of her heartbreak after it emerged that Rooney had visited prostitutes as a 16-year-old. She also gives sage advice on such matters as how to accessorise without lapsing into bling, and why it is inexcusable to wear a visible thong above a trouser waistband.

McLoughlin is one of the highest earning “wags” — footballer’s wife or girlfriend — in Britain. Her agents are in talks for her to co-present television shows and to renew her contract as the face of Asda. Some predict that she will become a popular television presenter, in the style of Cilla Black.

The first half of the Hello! deal covers her 21st birthday party at Thornton Hall on the Wirral in two weeks’ time. The 300 guests are expected to include a host of footballers and pop stars, including P Diddy, the rap star. The Sugababes are due to perform hits such as Taller in More Ways.

Ian Monk, the publicist for the couple who helped set up the deal with Hello!, said: “We cannot discuss our clients’ business.”

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