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| Ferguson’s Move Shakes Soccer, and Business | |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| LONDON — The sudden announcement on Wednesday that Alex Ferguson will retire in two weeks’ time after almost 27 years as manager of Manchester United has shaken its shares on the New York Stock Exchange, to say nothing of its effect around the sporting world. | |
| The club’s share price fell as much as 3.5 percent in early trading in New York within hours of the statement from Britain though it recovered some and was down 1.44 percent in afternoon trading. The decline reflects how much of a business sports has become, and how much Ferguson has meant to United’s dominant position in the global game. | |
| ‘'It is the right time,'’ he said Wednesday in Manchester. | |
| At 71, he faces a hip operation in the coming weeks, and he has served his time with a club where he has built, and ruthlessly rebuilt, the playing squad five times to sustain its leading position atop the English Premier League and remain competitive in Europe. | |
| But it is beyond the playing field where the club has grown. Forbes magazine rates United and the Spanish giant Real Madrid as the two clubs whose $3 billion valuation makes them by far the greatest sporting franchises in the world. | |
| Follow the market in New York, stop off in Macao where the Manchester United sports store fills acres, witness the popularity of the team in Shanghai or Singapore, and you get some idea of the economic power — larger than some nations’ entire gross domestic products — of this gargantuan enterprise. | |
| ‘'Manchester United has been transformed as a football club under the management of Sir Alex Ferguson,'’ Dan Jones, a partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said Wednesday. ‘'Financially, the last 26 years have coincided with a wider revolution in English football with massive investment in the game and the growth of the Premier League, particularly driven by domestic and international broadcast deals.'’ | |
| The reality is that soccer is more than any business. Its power, which crosses borders and cultures, derives from its essence on the field, and that is where, undoubtedly, Ferguson has been monstrously successful among his peers. | |
| Ferguson, however, did not make Manchester United great. He revived it. He gave it back what Matt Busby, another Scot also from working class roots, achieved between 1945 and 1971 when Busby’s irrepressible spirit rebuilt a club out of the ruins of war, and then rebuilt his team after an airplane crash in Munich in 1958 decimated the best squad he ever built. | |
| That catastrophe, and United’s re-emergence from it, built the legend and the worldwide fame of the club. But toward the end of the Busby years it faded, and no man could turn the club around and re-establish it until Ferguson was appointed the team manager and coach in November 1986. | |
| There are players on his team today who were not born the day that Ferguson, with his fiery temperament, his winning mentality, and his aggressive, attacking style began that revival. | |
| Certainly, the business, now owned by the Glazer Family in Florida is global. Surely, one man is not the whole reason for its global popularity. But without Ferguson, the club’s future resembles the situation in the post-Busby years. | |
| Hence the immediate reaction on the stock market. Hence the statement from the owners when the club first was floated on the exchange last August. ‘'Any successor to our current manager,'’ it warned, ‘’ may not be as successful as our current manager.'’ | |
| It is unlikely anyone will ever surpass the length of time Ferguson has managed at one club. But names of possible successors quickly popped up. | |
| One man touted to be the possible next United manager has been José Mourinho, the simmering Portuguese coach who is expected to leave the helm of Real Madrid soon. | |
| Coincidentally, Madrid knocked United out of the Champions League this season. | |
| Mourinho has been viewed as negotiating his way back to Chelsea, his former club. But he made what was widely seen as an audition to be Ferguson’s successor when they met in the Champions League, though questions about Mourinho’s behavior might prevent him from getting the United job. | |
| Bobby Charlton, the former great player of United who remains one of its directors, questioned whether a man who once stuck his finger in the eye of a fellow coach in a sideline argument at Barcelona had the dignity required to be the figurehead of a Manchester United. | |
| If not Mourinho, the speculation points toward David Moyes as another possible successor. He is a fellow Scot, drawn from the same city, Glasgow, where Ferguson learned his values and his work ethic as the son of a trade union official in the Govan shipyard six decades ago. | |
| Moyes shares that tough upbringing, and has shown his ability to manage players in a 10-year tenure at the Everton Football Club. What Moyes lacks, however, is European experience; he has built a competitive team on a strained budget, but it is a team without a trophy during his reign. | |
| Ferguson has seldom missed a day on the training field, much less a night in the competitive arena, whereas a coach his teams accumulated 49 trophies — including 13 seasons as England’s champion but only two, in 1999 and 2008, as the Champions League winner. | |
| Ferguson’s reign makes him the most successful manager and coach — rolled into one — that the sport has ever seen. It is difficult to think of any comparable tenure in sports, politics or business during his time at United. | Ferguson’s reign makes him the most successful manager and coach — rolled into one — that the sport has ever seen. It is difficult to think of any comparable tenure in sports, politics or business during his time at United. |
| ‘'The biggest challenge?'’ he once said. ‘'Managing change.'’ | ‘'The biggest challenge?'’ he once said. ‘'Managing change.'’ |
| A man of volatile temperament — sometimes a bully, often a father figure — he built and ruthlessly rebuilt five squads of players over more than a quarter of a century. One player, Ryan Giggs, grew up from a 14-year-old apprentice to a winger who is still running on Ferguson’s first team, through all the triumphs and the rebuilding. Giggs is almost 40 now, and still under Ferguson’s wing. | A man of volatile temperament — sometimes a bully, often a father figure — he built and ruthlessly rebuilt five squads of players over more than a quarter of a century. One player, Ryan Giggs, grew up from a 14-year-old apprentice to a winger who is still running on Ferguson’s first team, through all the triumphs and the rebuilding. Giggs is almost 40 now, and still under Ferguson’s wing. |
| Ferguson’s style was defined by his giving youth its chance and clinging to experienced players while they still gave him value. But above all, he is a manager driven by a single goal: to win. | Ferguson’s style was defined by his giving youth its chance and clinging to experienced players while they still gave him value. But above all, he is a manager driven by a single goal: to win. |
| Ferguson, knighted in the British custom for outstanding service to his ‘'industry, faces surgery when this season is done. | |
| He may not admit it, but he has just steered a team nowhere near the best squads in his reign to the title he vowed to regain the moment the neighbor, Manchester City, took it from him on goal difference a year ago. | |
| His desire to go out on top was insatiable, but the reality this year is that no English team was good enough to even make it to the quarterfinals of the Champions League. Ferguson knows that Champions League success is the measuring stick in modern soccer. | |
| Whoever replaces him will have to take that challenge on, because United, owned by the Glazers, an American family, is a multibillion-dollar franchise that markets itself around the globe as being among the biggest and the best. | |
| Ferguson’s career was stamped with success even before he moved south from Scotland to Manchester on Nov. 6, 1986. He had galvanized Aberdeen, in the very north of Scotland, to break the Celtic vs. Rangers monopoly of Scottish soccer, and it was the vigor of that team, the attacking style of it, that brought ‘'Fiery Fergie'’ to the attention of United. | Ferguson’s career was stamped with success even before he moved south from Scotland to Manchester on Nov. 6, 1986. He had galvanized Aberdeen, in the very north of Scotland, to break the Celtic vs. Rangers monopoly of Scottish soccer, and it was the vigor of that team, the attacking style of it, that brought ‘'Fiery Fergie'’ to the attention of United. |
| The question Manchester had then, and may have about Moyes now, was whether he could manage the egos of some of the world’s highest-paid athletes. Could he persuade players who became millionaires in their teenage years to play as a team, to train as a team, and to go through whatever pain or glory the manager demanded of them as a team? | The question Manchester had then, and may have about Moyes now, was whether he could manage the egos of some of the world’s highest-paid athletes. Could he persuade players who became millionaires in their teenage years to play as a team, to train as a team, and to go through whatever pain or glory the manager demanded of them as a team? |
| Ferguson almost failed at the start. He was given something that his successor may not get — time — to build and nurture a squad that stands the test of time. | Ferguson almost failed at the start. He was given something that his successor may not get — time — to build and nurture a squad that stands the test of time. |
| That is so rare in European club soccer that no one today even comes close to the length of Ferguson’s 27-year stay as a top manager. | |
| The German Bundesliga at the moment is regarded as the pillar of stability in an impatient global scene. Jupp Heynckes will coach Bayern Munich against Borussia Dortmund at Wembley Stadium in London in the all-German Champions League final on May 25. | |
| Heynckes, who is four years younger than Ferguson and has completed 50 years in the professional game, has had 13 top jobs in his coaching career — in Germany, Spain and Portugal — in the same period of time in which Ferguson has moved just once, from Aberdeen to the institution of United. | Heynckes, who is four years younger than Ferguson and has completed 50 years in the professional game, has had 13 top jobs in his coaching career — in Germany, Spain and Portugal — in the same period of time in which Ferguson has moved just once, from Aberdeen to the institution of United. |
| ‘'It is important to leave an organization in the strongest possible shape,'’ Ferguson said Wednesday, ‘'and I believe I have done that.'’ | |
| He talked about the balance of youth and experience in the squad, about the training facilities that are second-to-none in the world, about the systems in place for his successor. | |
| What he did not address was the steel required of the next man in his seat. Many years ago, before Ferguson came south to the job, Busby — who had built up United from the end of World War II to the most renowned force in club soccer — remained on the board of directors. | |
| It was always said that Busby’s presence around Old Trafford Stadium — he started managing United in 1945, and finished in 1971 — was an intimidating factor to the managers who tried and failed to pick up his baton. | |
| Ferguson’s successor will have to live with him on the board, and no matter how well-intentioned or how paternal the outgoing giant of his trade will conduct himself in his new role, the new manager will need nerves of steel not to wilt in the shadow. | Ferguson’s successor will have to live with him on the board, and no matter how well-intentioned or how paternal the outgoing giant of his trade will conduct himself in his new role, the new manager will need nerves of steel not to wilt in the shadow. |
| The bar is set terrifyingly — or inspirationally — high. | The bar is set terrifyingly — or inspirationally — high. |