Ed Woodward's tough summer in charge of Manchester United
The new man at the top at Old Trafford is struggling to adapt to the rough and tumble of the transfer market
Guillermo Varela is Manchester United's only signing of the summer. Photograph: Daniel
Manchester United's vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, has proved himself adept at making major signings during his eight years at Old Trafford. From Mister Potato to Kansai Paint,
the commercial strategy he devised has helped turn the world a shade of red. Perhaps more than any other individual bar Sir Alex Ferguson, the once reviled Glazers owe him a debt of gratitude for ensuring the wheels did not fall off their risky, highly leveraged wagon.
However, the
40-year-old, who came to football from investment banking, risks seeing his hard-won reputation as a tough negotiator and commercially savvy operator turn to dust in the space of a few short months having taken over from
the former chief executive David Gill to assume responsibility for the football side of the club. The nadir came in mid-July when Woodward cancelled a scheduled media appearance and took a plane back from Australia, where United were playing the latest leg of an extended world tour designed to help keep the commercial wheels turning, to conduct some "major transfer
business" only for nothing to transpire.
That was closely followed by the
Cesc Fábregas press conference in which the midfielder stated he never had any intention of leaving the Camp Nou, giving the distinct impression that United had been strung along and encouraged to lodge two bids for a player who used their interest to improve his own position. Making the pursuit so public only exacerbated the embarrassment when it failed.
The transition from the calm opulence of United's well appointed Mayfair offices, the source of a network of sponsors that have been sliced and diced across the globe in a model that contributed to a 31% year-on-year increase in commercial revenues, to the rough and tumble of the top end of the transfer market has been a painful one.
The summer began with the names of Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Fábregas, Thiago Alcântara and Luka Modric ricocheting around the walls of Old Trafford. But when
David Moyes's team run out at Wembley on Sunday to face Wigan Athletic in the
Community Shield, the squad will be bolstered by just one new name: the 20-year-old Uruguayan full-back Guillermo Varela, who is expected to be sent out on loan this season.
Even if Marouane Fellaini and Leighton Baines follow Moyes along the M62, it is unlikely to set many pulses racing among the global fanbase that has been so carefully cultivated in the Glazer era.
This was not just paper talk, of which there has been so much this summer given the unusual number of ongoing big name transfer sagas that threaten to make a mockery of Uefa president Michel Platini's drive to cool the game's overheated
finances, but encouraged from within. The suggestion that the Moyes era would begin with a bang was actively encouraged by United, with the hierarchy making it known that they would not balk at paying £60m-plus for a player if they felt it was the right move.
After years of Ferguson having to operate within the financial constraints imposed by the Glazer business model, over the past two or three seasons the purse strings have been loosened as the commercial model pioneered by Woodward has paid off and the interest burden has eased.
But Moyes has gone from rubbing his hands at having the sort of leeway in the transfer market that he was forever denied at Goodison Park, where he had to scrimp and save to keep Everton competitive, to cutting an increasingly frustrated figure as target after target has slipped by. He is well aware that his squad is in need of reinforcement, particularly in midfield, and that he faces a battle to hang on to a disaffected
Wayne Rooney.
Despite the hundreds of millions of euros and the reputations at stake, the thousands of words expended and the amount of heat generated, the exclusive end of the European transfer market is still something of a cottage industry. Personal relationships are all, bluffs and double bluffs abound and there is little honour among thieves. Driving the market are a handful of so-called "super-agents" who sometimes give the impression that they are moving players around Europe in a real-life game of Risk, plotting their careers one or two lucrative moves hence.
Those with longstanding experience of that world say Woodward is bound to have struggled without the close personal relationships with those handful of executives who run the biggest clubs in Europe that Gill had worked so hard to build up over the years. One well-connected insider, who estimated that players and their agents now held 98% of the power, said the No1 rule of the game was: "Know your enemy".
That Woodward's elevation to replace Gill happened at the same time as
Moyes arrived from Everton to begin the uphill task of replacing Ferguson was initially hailed within Old Trafford as a positive move. It was felt the new broom would represent a break from the past and a fresh start, with the continued presence of their predecessors on the board providing a continuity that represented the best of both worlds.
Gill and Ferguson were not always successful in landing their targets, as the failed pursuit of Wesley Sneijder in 2010 showed. And Ferguson was not averse to the odd clanger, from Ralph Milne to
Bébé. But the hits far outweighed the misses and their Robin van Persie coup last summer and the sheer volume of silverware they secured casts a long shadow for their successors.
Moyes might be forgiven for wondering whether it might not have made more sense to have a more staggered handover in the boardroom over the course of this crucial first summer. Those who know Woodward well say he is too canny and too smart not to work out how to navigate the European transfer market. But the fear of United fans, contemplating the resolution of the endless Rooney saga and noting the busy summer activity of their rivals across Europe, is that they will come too late to salvage a summer for an exposed new regime.
The final analysis will have to wait for the closure of the
transfer window on 2 September and, beyond that, the final reckoning in May. But as has been endlessly pointed out, in the modern era Moyes is unlikely to be granted as much leeway as Ferguson was when he joined the club in 1986 to begin building his empire. Not least because satisfying the global commercial money-making machine Woodward has created, partly on the back of the club's rich history but partly on the promise they will continue to compete with the best of the best, requires continued success. From the factories of Chinese soft drinks giant Wahaha to the vineyards of Chilean wine producer Casillero del Diablo, the world is watching.
