Sir Alex Ferguson dropped him and did not even put him on the substitutes' bench for the 3-2 home defeat to Blackburn on New Year's Eve.
Neither the club nor the player's representative wished to elaborate on the matter, nor even to confirm Rooney was axed from Saturday's 3-2 defeat to Blackburn as part of his punishment.
Sir Alex Ferguson: "We're trying hard to get Rio Ferdinand for (Wednesday) and Ryan Giggs which would make a good difference to us.
"Anderson should be better, he had 45 minutes on Saturday after four months out. There are no other ones to come back immediately. And Wayne Rooney will be available of course.
"We had a few training sessions which he missed. You've got to be fit to play in this league, you can't miss training sessions.
"We're getting a lot of impact injuries, contact injuries. Maybe the way we play creates that because we're always wanting to have the ball and we're always wanting to play."