Manchester United team captain Wayne Rooney is set to join Chinese Super League club Shanghai SIPG FC for $98 million in January, according to recent rumors.

Rooney, who turned 31 on Monday, has been relegated to the bench by United head coach Jose Mourinho as his skills were deemed to be on a decline. The team skipper graciously obliged to the decision with world record-signing Paul Pogba now playing the no. 10 starting role behind Zlatan Ibrahimović.

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Rooney's former England national team coach Sven-Göran Eriksson is said to be aware of the recent developments at Old Trafford and is open for his former player to join him at Shanghai SIPG next season.

Caught Offside reported that Eriksson, who provided Rooney the opportunity to play his first game with the Three Lions in 2003, is keen on persuading the Englishman to sign with SIPG for a multi-year contract worth $98 million, excluding commercial bonuses.

The deal will earn Rooney around $610,000 per week, which will double his current salary in United and make him the highest-earning footballer in the world.

The said offer was already proposed to Rooney 10 months ago, according to the report, but he turned it down and opted to stay with the Red Devils for this season.

However, with Mourinho's seeming loss of confidence in his captain, Rooney may finally accept the Shanghai deal when the transfer window re-opens in January.

If the deal pushes through, Rooney will join another big-name former European standout, Brazilian winger Hulk, in the Red Eagles' roster.

Another option for Rooney is to join former England teammates Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in the Major League Soccer, the Mirror reported. But the amount of money offered by Shanghai may be too good to pass up for the England captain as MLS deals are but a fraction of the compensation sizes in China.

Meanwhile, Mourinho has recently stressed that he would never sell Rooney as he believes the player should decide when his United career will end.

"I will never make that decision. A player of his stature, a player of his history in the club will never go to point where club or manager want to make that decision for him," Mourinho said.

"I put him (Rooney) on the bench for three matches in a row," the manager added. "That is hard for him, hard for me, so that is being ruthless, to put in my mind the interests of the team in front of the player, prestige, status."

"In this case even legend," Mourinho further noted. "To put on bench a player with the numbers he has for club and country is hard."

Tags Football Transfer Rumors, Football Transfer Rumors 2016, Manchester United, Wayne Rooney, Shanghai SIPG FC