Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson condemns treatment of managers

Sir alex ferguson – Manchester united coach

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Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has denounced the way managers are treated by increasingly impatient football clubs in the modern game.

Ferguson has been in charge at Old Trafford for 25 years, overseeing the most successful period in United’s history. His current side lead the Premier League by six points with six games remaining, on the cusp of a 19th league title which would see United overtake Liverpool as English football’s most successful club.

But the length of the Scot’s tenure has proved the exception rather than the rule in terms of top level management, as club coaches find themselves increasingly at the whim of ambitious and impatient owners.

Ferguson does not envy his colleagues’ predicament, and has condemned the ruthless manner in which many chairmen deal with the managers they employ.

“My sympathy goes out to managers who lose their jobs,” said the 69-year-old, speaking in an interview with the League Managers’ Association’s The Manager magazine.

“There’s been a lot of unusual sackings lately, which I’ve found hard to understand.”

Ferguson believes clubs’ all-consuming desire for success is making it harder for young managers to make their way in the game. However, he insists that with the right chairman, a little luck and a lot of hard work, success can still be achieved.

“More than ever, management is a precarious industry,” he added. “I say to all young managers that the first thing they need is a good chairman.

“They also need luck and they need to make sure they’re prepared to make sacrifices for the job, because this is an unremitting industry.

“It’s a results industry, as we all know, but you can help yourself by being totally committed to that alone.”

Ferguson’s own success with Manchester United has made him a role model for all prospective managers, but the man himself revealed there is no fear of him wallowing in past glories – his wife Cathy sees to that.

The former Aberdeen boss added: “I prefer to think about what’s ahead and what next I can achieve, and I think that has kept my feet on the ground quite well. I’ve never got carried away with it.

“My wife, Cathy, is fed up with the whole thing. When Alastair Campbell phoned her about my knighthood she said to him, ‘do you not think he’s had enough rewards?’

“You’ll not find a thing about my career in the house at all. She’s unbelievable. I can’t even take a football book home or she’ll say, ‘what are you doing with that?”