Football – Bloody Hell!

by Patrick Barclay

  Talking to both parties all the while was Dermot Desmond, the leading shareholder in Celtic. He was friendly with Ferguson, who had helped him to persuade Martin O’Neill to manage the Glasgow club, and very close to Magnier and McManus, not just at Coolmore but in other ventures, including a Barbados hotel.

  Desmond had also bought some shares in United; his stake was about 1.5 per cent. The Glazer family, owners of an American football franchise and, at that stage, thought to be merely exploring the potential of European ‘soccer’, held a little more. Harry Dobson, a Scottish mining entrepreneur, had bought 6.5 per cent and John de Mol, the Dutchman responsible for Big Brother, 4.1 per cent. Cubic by now had 10.4 per cent, taking it above the 9.9 per cent of Sky, making the Irishmen the club’s leading shareholders. And still the public perception was of Ferguson’s horse-racing cronies steadily buying in. It even survived a report that Paddy Harverson, United’s head of communications, had spoken disparagingly of the Irish to a journalist. Naturally this angered Magnier. If Ferguson, whom he regarded as part of the United establishment, wanted a fight, he could have one. Heels were dug in. Ferguson engaged Dublin lawyers for a court case over the stud fees that would have to be heard in Ireland.

  Magnier’s Gloves Come Off

  The dispute hit the streets around the time that United were completing the £12.4 million signing of Cristiano Ronaldo.

  At first – strange as it may be to recall – the Portuguese teenager was widely regarded as flashy, a show pony, an inadequate replacement for Beckham, who had been sold to Real Madrid a couple of months after their spectacular visit to Old Trafford. Signings also included Eric Djemba Djemba, Kléberson and David Bellion. The assumption that Ferguson had a just case against Magnier protected him from criticism; the newspapers took his side.

  Ferguson and controversy were, however, recurrent companions. The previous season, at around the time he was absorbing the realisation that Magnier would fight him for the stud money, there had been the incident of the flying boot in the dressing room that cut Beckham’s eyebrow and had the player advancing on Ferguson until Ryan Giggs restrained him. Now Ferguson, after haranguing match officials at Newcastle, was banished to the stands.

  Then he took on the FA when Rio Ferdinand missed a drug test, making irate phone calls to the organisation’s head of communication, Paul Barber. ‘This is a fucking disgrace,’ he stormed, once again rallying behind a member of the United family in his perceived hour of need. ‘You’re killing the boy’s reputation.’

  The truth was that any damage to Ferdinand’s reputation was self-inflicted in that he had forgotten to take the routine test at Carrington – he had driven off to go shopping while the three other chosen players gave their samples – and left the FA with no alternative but to omit him from the England squad to travel to Istanbul for a European Championship qualifying match. Had he been included and played, Uefa would have been entitled to throw England out of the tournament. Ferguson should have known this. Instead, he furiously accused the FA of ‘hanging the boy out to dry’ – a phrase repeated by Gary Neville as the players rallied round their grounded colleague, even debating a boycott of the trip that would have benefited only the Turkish hosts.

  It was an example of how Ferguson’s United circled their wagons. Even David Gill, who had recently taken over from Peter Kenyon as chief executive, stood defiant alongside Ferguson and his errant defender.

  And then Ferguson asked for a new contract to take him to 2007 and the age of sixty-five.

  This only confirmed Magnier’s assumptions about the politics of Old Trafford. Ferguson had the board and the new chief executive – Gill had been promoted when Abramovich’s riches lured Kenyon to Chelsea – firmly with him. The battle lines were being drawn and the power of Magnier’s artillery soon became evident as it emerged that Cubic had bought out Sky, increasing its stake to 23.15 per cent. The Glazers had 9.6 per cent and by now were seen as the good guys.

  In November, with United trailing not only a rampant Arsenal but Chelsea under Claudio Ranieri, Ferguson’s writ arrived in Dublin. He was now arguing that the Rock’s value had been enhanced by association with his name and Magnier’s lawyers, dismissing his case as ‘without merit’, promised a vigorous retort.

  A token of Magnier’s determination was detected at the United AGM, during which noticeably well-informed shareholder representatives, whom Michael Crick found to be actors, asked questions about the conduct of transfers. Around the same time stories about various deals appeared in the Sunday Times. Anyone seeking to probe Ferguson’s vulnerabilities – and Magnier had hired corporate investigators – would have concentrated on this area. In particular there had been the embarrassment over the activities of Jason Ferguson in transfers and Sir Roland Smith’s unhappiness, before his death and replacement as plc chairman by Sir Roy Gardner, about Elite’s having received up to £1.5 million in connection with Jaap Stam’s move to Lazio.

  The fact that Lazio had paid it might well have heightened Sir Roland’s concern. He could have been forgiven for asking himself: why had the Romans been so grateful – might United have got a better deal?

  Jason and his father also featured in Tom Bower’s acclaimed book Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football: ‘Agents discovered that Sir Alex encouraged players seeking transfers in and out of the club to abandon their established agents and engage Jason Ferguson . . .’ He may, of course, have done so because of his absolute trust in Jason and distaste for agents in general (with exceptions, such as the disgraced Hauge). But he must have known that others might take a different view of Jason’s involvement in Stam’s departure, the engagement of Laurent Blanc and the arrival from Wigan Athletic of Roy Carroll, a goalkeeper with a weakness for gambling.

  A failure to take account of this proved self-damaging. When Magnier heard that Ferguson was not only seeking a long-term contract extension but expressing confidence that Gill would arrange it, the gloves came off.

  Even the discovery that Ferguson, after encountering a heart murmur, was to have a pacemaker fitted became relevant: was it responsible in these circumstances for the club to commit itself for four more years? Ferguson laughed off his difficulty, saying the players had been shocked to discover he had a heart. But Magnier was no laughing matter – and not for turning back.

  In January 2004 he sent the board a letter containing the famous ‘99 questions’. They found their way into the Daily Mail (by coincidence a paper against which Ferguson had held a long-standing grudge) and the issues raised included ‘conduct of player transfers’, ‘commissions paid in relation to large transactions’, ‘accuracy of presentation of financial data in annual accounts’ and ‘conflicts of interest’. This seemed to be the crux of it: ‘There are some individual transfers where the fees and payments made to players and agents are particularly large . . . what we cannot understand is the necessity for the relative secrecy in which the agents conduct their role and also the astonishing fees which have been charged to the company on the completion of transfers.’

  Manchester United was not the only club where such questions could be asked. Football was – and is – a very dubiously run industry and few were greatly shocked when, towards the end of 2009, it was disclosed that Premier League clubs alone had paid a total of £71 million in one year to intermediaries in transfers.

  Why anything needs to be paid to these people, who used to be confined to the perfectly legitimate and desirable sphere of player representation, is the big question. Clubs are perfectly capable of arranging their own transfers and many observers of the game have long believed that the practice of agents acting for clubs (as distinct from players) is institutionally corrupt, however legal, accepted and commonplace.

  So naturally, as Ferguson paid a call on his old foes the FA to assure them he had nothing to fear from the investigation, there was some relish for the notion of Magnier shining a light into the corners of United’s business. But I warned the readers of the
Sunday Telegraph: ‘Just lose no sleep in your excitement at the prospect of a court battle bristling with allegations – because there won’t be one. While Magnier and Ferguson share a gift for the taking of tough postures – one is strong and silent, the other amusingly ebullient – nothing scares such men like disclosure. The case will be settled.’

  Sadder and Wiser

  Ferguson must have wished it could go to a jury of United supporters. At the next home match – a 3-2 victory over Southampton in which Louis Saha, signed from Fulham, scored on his debut – a chant of ‘Stand up if you love Fergie’ was ignored only by the visitors’ section (and the press and directors’ boxes, where etiquette forbids such display). There were less supportive chants about Magnier and where he could stick his ninety-nine questions. But the red hordes and their circled wagons could not protect Ferguson now. There was only one way out and, upon telephoning Magnier in Barbados, he discovered that it amounted to surrender.

  Yes, said Magnier, there could be an out-of-court settlement, but it would be on his terms. There would be no half-share of the £100 million some had guessed the Rock might eventually earn, or anything like it. There would not even be the £7 million Ferguson had so rashly turned down, or even half of it. He got £2.5 million. Having lost the Rock, he was scarcely in the hardest of places. But the relaxing properties of the racecourse? Ferguson and Cathy were a sadder and wiser couple.

  As Ferguson had often said of his football teams, however, the mark is made not by defeat but the response to it. On the night of 9 March, as he came to terms with Magnier’s victory, United went out of the Champions League at Old Trafford. They led Porto on away goals until the ninetieth minute, when Tim Howard could only claw down a free-kick from Benni McCarthy and Costinha stabbed the loose ball into the net. Porto’s manager celebrated wildly, running along the touchline in a coat that was to become familiar; the following spring José Mourinho was to return to Old Trafford in charge of Chelsea, its newly hailed champions.

  In that 2003/4 season, he guided Porto to further victories over Lyon, Deportivo La Coruña and, in the final, Chelsea’s conquerors, Monaco, adding the Champions League to the Uefa Cup that Porto had won the previous season. At Old Trafford, they had been lucky in that Paul Scholes was denied a second goal before half-time by a flag erroneously raised for offside. But Ferguson took defeat with a sportsmanship that did him credit, especially given that United had failed even to reach the quarter-finals (the Champions League had finally abandoned the second group stage, instead having a round of sixteen) for the first time in eight years. As Glenn Moore noted in the Independent: ‘In times past, Ferguson would have headed, this morning, for the gallops. Now even that release is denied him.’

  A few of us briefly entertained the notion that Ferguson might be entering his darkest spell since the winter of 1989/90. Only briefly. On the Friday after the European exit he looked forward to a derby at the City of Manchester Stadium (rivals City having moved from Maine Road in 2005) despite a rash of injuries: ‘I’m not telling you how many are out – you wouldn’t bloody believe it!’ United lost 4-1, but by now they had only one realistic target and eventually they hit it by beating Millwall, from the division below, at Cardiff in the FA Cup final. Along the way they had overcome Manchester City, Aston Villa, Fulham and in the semi-finals – with the unceremonious approach to tackling that often marked confrontations with their keenest rivals – Arsenal. In the final one goal came from Ronaldo and another two from Van Nistelrooy, who finished with thirty in all competitions. Only Arsenal’s Thierry Henry, who took the second of three Footballer of the Year awards, was more feared.

  And Ferguson could look forward to the summer, in which he would watch Ronaldo’s Portugal put an England without Ferdinand out of the European Championship as Beckham failed from the penalty spot, knowing that the argument about who should profit from the sex-slave horse was behind him. As I wrote at the time: ‘Although we are told Magnier and McManus still want answers to the 99 questions they have put to the United board, anyone working on the assumption that the Irishmen are ethical zealots is probably also in the habit of saving extracted teeth for the fairies and going to sleep on the night of December 24 only after making sure the sherry and mince-pies are ready for Father Christmas.’

  Ferguson had known that much about his adversaries. He had lost his high-stakes gamble and, in the process, his campaign for a long-term contract; he was handed a one-year rolling agreement. The board decided to publish payments to agents in future and not to use Jason or Elite. But the immediate threat to the manager’s position had been lifted and early the next season he would have Ferdinand back. The defender had incurred an eight-month ban for missing the drug test. He had appealed and, before the hearing, Ferguson was asked if he would obtain a reduction. ‘If he doesn’t,’ said Ferguson, ‘I’ll be going to the United Nations.’ Kofi Annan was spared that experience. But Ferdinand had to serve his time.

  UNITED: RONALDO AND ROONEY

  Wine with Mourinho

  The 2003/4 season had been dramatic enough, but in a chilling way: one in which the wind of change had come all the way from Siberia.

  It was Roman Abramovich’s first season as owner of Chelsea and, although the team had finished a creditable second to the ‘Invincibles’ of Arsenal, he ended it by sacking the Italian manager, the affable Claudio Ranieri, whose desk had hardly been cleared when José Mourinho introduced himself.

  For the Special One it was to be a far from ordinary inauguration to England’s Premier League – the 2004/5 season began with a visit to Stamford Bridge of Ferguson’s United – and Mourinho remembered it clearly, in detail.

  Not least because of the culture shock: ‘It was the first time in my life I went to an important game without being with my team in a hotel. The game was at three o’clock and we met at Stamford Bridge at 12.30. For me this was a completely new experience. In Portugal, in Spain and in Italy people concentrate for one, two or even three days before – everyone else is outside the walls.

  ‘This was England, so I tried it the English way. I walked through the streets because my house was near the ground and, as I’m crossing the King’s Road with my assistants, I’m thinking – in a couple of hours we’re playing Manchester United! Stamford Bridge was empty. Everything was so quiet. Incredible!

  ‘I remember the game clearly too – a typical first game of the season. Not good quality. Not big emotion. A game for the first team to score.’ Eidur Gudjohnsen scored for Chelsea. ‘After that, we defended. We closed the door. They had a couple of chances, but we won.’

  And afterwards Mourinho came to understand one of the traditions Ferguson enjoyed: that of sharing a good bottle of red wine.

  They had got on well the previous season, despite Porto’s late victory and the linesman’s blunder that had permitted it. But those two matches in the Champions League did not signify the first acquaintance, even if Mourinho doubted that Ferguson would recall meeting him with Sir Bobby Robson back in 1996, when Robson was manager of Barcelona and Mourinho officially his translator (though Robson had seen enough of the younger man at Sporting Lisbon and Porto to have encouraged his involvement in training and match preparation).

  Day after day, Robson would talk to Mourinho about the English game, its characteristics and its personalities. ‘Sir Alex was one of the legends,’ said Mourinho, ‘and even Bobby, who was a legend of English football in his own right, spoke of him with great respect. And of course Manchester United had a great meaning for me as well.’

  One day Ferguson flew over with Martin Edwards and Maurice Watkins to arrange the transfer to United of Jordi Cruyff. The host delegation chose a restaurant. On one side were the Barcelona president, Josep Lluís Núñez, and vice-president, Joan Gaspart, with Robson and Mourinho. On the other were Edwards, Watkins and Ferguson. ‘And here I was,’ Mourinho recalled, ‘in the midst of a business deal between these two big clubs.

  ‘This was typical of how I learned about mana
gerial stuff with Bobby. In Portugal or Spain, it would not have been normal for the coach to be involved. I realised then that England was different. It was a perfect example of what Bobby had been telling me.’

  Even after a decade at United, Ferguson appears to have been just as hands-on as at Aberdeen when it came to transfers. He was very much involved in the Cruyff deal. ‘His ideas were very clear,’ said Mourinho. ‘He was fighting hard for his club. And an understanding of that dimension of management made me take an even greater interest in the English game, to fall in love with it even before I came.

  ‘I had always thought that the coach should not just do a training session a day, then go home and watch a couple of videos of the opposition and come in and do the same thing the next day. And here I saw the English style of management – and it was Sir Alex.’

  At that time it was plain Alex. Nearly eight years later, Sir Alex’s United drew Porto in the first knockout round of Champions League. First they played at the Dragão and there was no opportunity for post-match memories of Barcelona. Towards the end United, who had led through Quinton Fortune, lost to Benni McCarthy’s second goal and had Roy Keane sent off for what seemed a light tread on the back of the home goalkeeper, Vitor Baía. ‘Most people thought Sir Alex was going mad about it after the game,’ said Mourinho. ‘But for me – especially now that I have got to know him – he was not mad. He was starting to play the second game.’

  It began in the tunnel. ‘He and I were walking to the dressing rooms at the same time and he was shaking hands with me but not looking at me because the referee was coming behind us and Alex was complaining in his Scottish accent about the referee’s decisions. I didn’t interfere. I just let him get on with it.

  ‘At that moment, I think, he felt he was in trouble. I think Manchester United had gone into the game with respect, of course, but expecting to beat Porto. And now he knew Porto was a team of some resources too. And so he started, as I have done all my career – and he’s the master at it – to play the next game before it starts. In this case he was trying to create an atmosphere in which his own team would want revenge.