1 week Ago By [email protected] (Samuel Luckhurst)
Manchester United supporters will not be walking down the Warwick Road with buckets to have a whip-round for Sir Alex Ferguson this weekend. Ending Ferguson's handsome ambassadorial package is one of the more constructive cost-cutting measures by Ineos. Ferguson has raked in more than £2million a year since he headed upstairs in 2013.
His horse, Spirit Dancer, won the $1million Bahrain International Trophy in January. Ferguson turns 83 on New Year's Eve and will not get a begging bowl for his birthday. His ambassadorial duties have largely been confined to within Greater Manchester, unlike some of the former players who travel to all corners of the globe for events and meet-and-greets during pre-season and the season.
READ MORE: Missing out on young striker affected United's striker transfer plans with Kane, Hojlund and Zirkzee READ MORE: Two Thomas Frank quotes on United suggest Ratcliffe has a decision to make That is perfectly reasonable for a man whose greatest comeback was his recovery from a brain haemorrhage. When he returned to Old Trafford in September 2018, he received a standing ovation. His doctor had to rein in his eagerness after he visited Cristiano Ronaldo at Juventus's hotel at the Crowne Plaza in October.
There are a row of seats with Ferguson's name affixed to each plaque in the directors' box, the opposite stand is named after him, there is a statue of him outside and many drive or walk up Sir Alex Ferguson Way to get to Old Trafford. Ending his 12-year ambassadorial tenure should not discourage Ferguson from visiting his professional home. He does not loom as ominiously as he did during David Moyes's tenure and, though he has had no say in the running of United since he was the kingmaker for that botched succession, he has tried to exert it.
Some played the politics better than him. Jose Mourinho knew Ferguson blocked his appointment in 2013 and was vehemently against it in 2016, yet invited Ferguson onto the team coach. "To show him who the real boss was," a well-placed source said at the time.
Ferguson was still trying to wield his influence when he emerged with Sir Jim Ratcliffe for the latter's first appearance at Old Trafford after he agreed his minority stake. Despite their closeness that day, Ratcliffe has wisely kept Ferguson at arm's length. It may have still stung Ratcliffe that Eric Cantona indirectly dubbed him "a bucket of s**t" for ending Ferguson's ambassadorial status.
Cantona is Ratcliffe's hero. In the Ineos office where we were invited for a briefing with Ratcliffe in Knightsbridge, Cantona's shirt from the 1998 Munich testimonial match was draped over a mannequin. Faux outrage from Le Roi? Not necessarily.
Cantona spoke to one former club employee for 20 minutes on the phone after they were made redundant by Ineos in July. Cantona gifted this shirt to Ratcliffe Ferguson will have earned plenty after nearly 39 years as manager and ambassador of United. He merited it through his managerial genius, assembling three great sides during that 26-and-a-half-year epoch and collecting enough trophies to fill a skip.
If Sir Matt Busby was the man who rebuilt Old Trafford back, Ferguson expanded it. He also lined his wallet through the Glazers. Ferguson's dispute over the Rock of Gibraltar racehorse led to that toxic takeover in 2005 and the Glazers are still lurking nearly 20 years on.
Remuneration was a bugbear of Ferguson's as far back as the Nineties when he discovered George Graham was on a bigger whack at Arsenal. Managers are not as underestimated in this era and Ferguson used Wayne Rooney's U-turn in 2010 to his advantage. "When the Glazers.
.. agreed to a big increase in Wayne Rooney’s salary in 2010, they wanted to know how I felt," Ferguson wrote in his last book, Leading , in 2015.
“I told them I did not think it fair that Rooney should earn twice what I made and Joel Glazer immediately said: ‘I totally agree with you but what should we do?’ Ferguson and Rooney pose together after the latter agrees his new contract “It was simple. We just agreed no player should be paid more than me.” Cue more thrifty and iffy recruitment in Ferguson’s final years.
Ferguson still had an eye for a rough diamond (David de Gea). Without Robin van Persie, Ferguson would not have headed down the Old Trafford tunnel with a 13th Premier League winner's medal soaked by the champagne. Convincing Van Persie to head to the red side of Manchester effectively decided the title before a ball was kicked.
But United were saddled with Phil Jones for ten years after Ferguson retired, Angelo Henriquez never played for the club, Nick Powell never lived up to the promise while Alexander Buttner and Shinji Kagawa were jettisoned by Louis van Gaal. United did not break the £30m barrier for a signing in Ferguson's final five years in charge. In the 2009 summer window, United spent less than £20m.
That suggested there was cause for a whip-round..
