Alex Ferguson has been busy since his retirement in 2013. He has spoken and taught at Harvard
Business School, had a hip replacement, been on a cruise around the Hebrides, and attended
the Oscars, butterflying among stars like Reese Witherspoon, Samuel L Jackson and Serena
Williams.
He’s also found time to update his autobiography, and release a new, highly-successful book,
which describes key skills in leadership and lessons learned from decades of footballing
success. So, there was no flat cap and allotment for Ferguson, but his relationship with Manchester
United lacks the same kind of definition and his influence on the club’s present is relatively
tenuous.
Officially, Ferguson is a non-executive director and a global ambassador. In January 2015,
annual accounts released by the club revealed that he was being paid around £2.1m for his
role. In 2018, the Daily Mail’s Charlie Sale reported that that figure had risen to
£2.3m.
He’s extremely well-renumerated but not necessarily hugely relevant to the club’s
day-to-day operations, and that’s partly to do with the organisation’s evolution
in the years since.
Back in 2013, Ferguson’s retirement caused a great stress on Manchester United, with
the effects remaining in evidence to this day. It was not the only change the club endured
that summer, though, with the departure of long-term CEO David Gill, who also retreated
to a non-executive role.
Gill had worked at United in different capacities since 1997 and was a natural Ferguson ally.
When he was replaced by Ed Woodward, whose association with the club began with an advisory
role during the Glazer family’s takeover, it marked the beginning of a new era and the
replacement of the old nucleus of power.
To some, Ferguson’s retirement is entwined with the doomed appointment of David Moyes.
In the years since, he has rallied against the accusation that he was the sole driving
force behind Moyes’ arrival and, in his words, “the accepted view out there that
there was no process”.
“Nonsense” he says. Nevertheless, Moyes publicly enjoyed Ferguson’s patronage before
joining the club and it was Ferguson himself who telephoned the then-Everton manager to
tell him that the job was his. However important his voice had been in making that decision,
it would never be so again.
Ferguson was mindful of his shadow when Moyes arrived. A familiar trope in English football
– seen at United with Matt Busby and Liverpool with Bill Shankly – has been the damaging
proximity of a retired legend. Ferguson was keen to avoid adding to those examples, intentionally
keeping his distance during Moyes’s succession.
In private he was supportive. In his autobiography he recalls speaking to Moyes several times
during the darker moments, but he was intentionally reserved and, in any case, admitted that whatever
football appetites he still had were being served by his appointment to an ambassadorial
role with UEFA and his chairing of their coaching seminars.
His relationships with the three coaches who followed Moyes have each been different. Ferguson
has spoken before of his admiration for Louis van Gaal, both in respect of his gravitas
and – coincidentally, given the stylistic inertia that he would bring to Old Trafford
– his brand of football. But there was no closeness between the two, whether unintentional
so or by design.
Jose Mourinho offered a different dynamic. Publicly, he had always treated Ferguson with
reverence, and he was also the first of Ferguson’s successors to invite him back to Carrington.
And, with enough time having passed since his retirement, it was a gesture Ferguson
appreciated.
As was to be expected, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was also very welcoming. Ferguson suffered
a brain haemorrhage in May of 2018 and would require life-saving surgery, but he would
make a full recovery and was welcomed back to the training ground in January ’19, shortly
before – under Solskjaer’s temporary control – United beat Tottenham at Wembley. After
the victory, which was part of a sequence which helped securing Solskjaer the job on
a permanent basis, Ferguson and his grandson were invited on to the team coach.
These moments have been ceremonial in tone, of course, but Ferguson’s influence is subliminal
but very real upon his former player. It appears in literal gestures, like Solskjaer’s insistence
that players should travel to away games in club suits, an old rule from the Ferguson
era. And in more subtle ways, too, such as in the way he refers to young players as ‘boys’
and how, recently, he made an impassioned complaint about fixture congestion live on
British television.
Small details, but Fergusonisms all the same – and, while Solskjaer is very much now
his own manager, the two still periodically meet after games.
Nevertheless, Ferguson’s footballing expertise are rarely employed by the club. He keeps
an office at Old Trafford which he uses for entertaining and hospitality. He attends nearly
every home game, eating meals in the main stand before taking his seat in the Director’s
Box. And, prior to his surgery, he would sometimes accompany the first-team to away games in
Europe, on tours overseas or, if the situation warranted, be part of the club’s commercial
interaction with major sponsors.
Naturally, though, with Ferguson now approaching his 79th birthday and having suffered such
a serious illness, he tends to take part in the more informal aspects of club business
– meeting opposition dignitaries before matches, for instance, or helping to convince
new signings to join.
Ferguson was part of the red carpet rolled out for Jude Bellingham in early 2020. Although
the young midfielder would ultimately decide to join Borussia Dortmund, he and his family
met with Ferguson during their tour of the club’s training facilities and were said
to be impressed by whatever they heard.
But while there may be occasional exceptions, these are the limits of Ferguson’s authority.
He remains revered and respected, as well he might, but he is not and nor has he ever
been any sort of puppet master or backseat driver.