When last Tuesday evening a news appeared, claiming Manchester United is about to issue an important statement, and that it might pertain to Alex Ferguson, I could only think that the Glazers, a family from the United States, who took over ownership of the club several years ago, must be pushing him out, unhappy with United's another failure in the Champions League. All the news coming out of Manchester on Wednesday said that Sir Alex decided to leave now, supposedly at the best of times, when United was assured of winning the 20th domestic title and when the team's future was secured financially as well as on a sporting level. It was so strange to me that nobody seemed to doubt the official story. Yet, last Sunday Sir Alex claimed that he feels great and is already thinking of another campaign, he was in fact actively involved in attempts to bring back Cristiano Ronaldo and to acquire Robert Lewandowski from Borussia Dortmund. What could have happened that caused such an immediate turn around in the space of two days? Illness of Sir Alex or his wife? There was no such a news coming out of his inner circle, instead there was a news of a conference of the top people in the club with the Glazers. Must be the Glazers, I formulated quickly an opinion, and here is why: the Glazers must be unhappy with Manchester United's recently perennial failure in the most prestigious of competitions, the UEFA Champions League, why they still are paying off the huge loan which they took to finance Manchester United takeover and then burdened the club with it. In this season, the team did not make the quarterfinals; the season before was even worse as United were eliminated in the group stages of the Champions League and were banished to Europa League, from which they were eventually kicked out by lowly but stylish Athletic Bilbao, the same team which is holding for dear life in current La Liga season. Sir Alex was a great coach who had a blue print for successfully competing in Premier League, the English domestic competition. However, in the Champions League, where he had to deal with teams consisting of players on a higher technical and tactical levels, he was able to convert the 13 Premiership titles to only 2 Champions League trophies. Apparently, he had too many English, physical players in his team, who were and still are unable to compete with the more sophisticated European or South American players of top European teams. Clearly, Manchester United recent failures in Europe were treated by the Glazer family as one bridge too far, particularly when they realized how much profits were lost in the recent Champions League campaigns. Someone had to pay for it. It appears that that someone is Sir Alex Ferguson, the man who secured for Manchester United 13 Premier League titles, but only 2 Champions League trophies. The world of business nowadays is still cruel and the credo "greed is good" still rules; the owners and corporate executives do not dwell on the past, either you win and are profitable or you are gone. Such is the news to world of football (or soccer) from corporate America.
Janusz Andrzejewski is a New York City based attorney, writing on legal and other important community subjects. You can contact him at (212) 634-4250 or by e-mail at janusz@januszandrzejewski.com
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