Wayne Rooney could star in Angry Birds

Wayne Rooney could find himself alongside Red, Chuck, Bomb and Matilda in a special Everton-themed version of Angry Birds.

It was announced earlier this month that Rovio had agreed a sponsorship deal with Everton that sees the Angry Birds logo displayed on the club’s shirt sleeves.

Now Everton striker Rooney could find himself in a special edition of the hugely popular game.

Though the deal drew plenty of derision from rival supporters, not least because the main character is red, it is believed the Everton hierarchy have been praised by boardrooms across the country for agreeing such an innovative deal.

Everton hope the deal with appeal to a different demographic in key growth markets such as China and the Far East. While Rovio are hoping to tap into the global appeal of the Premier League.

Launched in 2009, five versions of the Angry Birds have been downloaded a total of 3.7billion times. While the brand also has three billion YouTube views and has 25million Facebook followers.

Ville Heijari, Rovio Entertainment's chief marketing officer, said:

"We have a history of doing Angry Bird homages of real-life characters so obviously now we are in collaboration (with Everton) we can work together to bring interesting characters and profiles into the games.

"Potentially Wayne Rooney would be involved.

“It is not just enough that we reach mobile players; we want to reach sports fans, television spectators, so it is a big audience we are going after."

This latest deal is one of a number of commercial agreements reached under the stewardship of Farhad Moshiri, including the sponsorship of Finch Farm, that has brought close to £90m into the club.

Those sorts of deals off the pitch are vital if the club are to increase spending on players and not fall foul of Financial Fair Play regulations.

Speaking of the Rovio agreement, Everton's head of commercial Alan McTavish said:

"For us this is a real plus in that we have been able to secure a brand of the level of Rovio with the level of brand awareness they have and the undoubted market-leading following they have.

"It (shirt sleeve sponsorship) has been a really competitive marketplace and there have been deals done across the league at different levels but we are confident we have done the best of them all."

But what about Red? How is he going to slot alongside the boys in royal blue?

Heijari added:

"Believe me it was controversial at our end too. Our main character is red, his name is Red and we were thinking 'How do we make this work?'.

"I think we have our work cut out to win the hearts and minds of the fans with the character Red but I think he will be a big hit with the younger fans and from there we can try to win over everyone."