Sir Alex Ferguson's ambassadorial contract has been axed

I fail to see what benefit we were getting out of the arrangement that was worth a couple million a year.
 
Good call. Sir Alex is the greatest manager of all time and our biggest legend but the club comes first.
 
I think it’s a poor move.
Obviously sowing division among the fans and the press will spin it like he’s been ruthlessly sacked by the new regime whereas the much maligned Glazers were happy to keep the status quo, it’s not a great look.
Financially the club may save £2m a year, if he lives and wanted to keep his role for another 10 years, that would be a cost of £20m , still peanuts to club of utds size.

I wouldn’t mind betting the mere presence of Fergie still being at the club brings in £2m or more annually.
Maybe Inneos have costed it and have their sums right or they are doing this as some kind of moral thing after sacking lots of lower paid staff.
Almost certain they could have left things as they were with fergie and there wouldn’t have been any kind of outrage or questions about his worth and possible savings brought up.
 
Devil_forever said:
He was getting paid over £2m a year for over a decade after he retired for a ceremonial position. SAF literally has generational wealth and if you read the article, it was amicable.

What I worry far more is for the average Joe that lost their job in the previous cuts. The club made a loss of £113m last year, I’d rather we cut the salaries of multi millionaires to save the money than an average worker.
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Completely agree. His salary alone probably makes up between 50-75 salaries elsewhere across the company.
 
I don't think Fergie would have been particularly comfortable with taking that amount of money whilst layoffs are required elsewhere. It's a complete non-story.
 
Iffin said:
I think it’s a poor move.
Obviously sowing division among the fans and the press will spin it like he’s been ruthlessly sacked by the new regime whereas the much maligned Glazers were happy to keep the status quo, it’s not a great look.
Financially the club may save £2m a year, if he lives and wanted to keep his role for another 10 years, that would be a cost of £20m , still peanuts to club of utds size.

I wouldn’t mind betting the mere presence of Fergie still being at the club brings in £2m or more annually.
Maybe Inneos have costed it and have their sums right or they are doing this as some kind of moral thing after sacking lots of lower paid staff.
Almost certain they could have left things as they were with fergie and there wouldn’t have been any kind of outrage or questions about his worth and possible savings brought up.
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Consistent behaviour no ?
Cut ALL the useless jobs.
 
I'm 50/50 here. SAF is millionaire, I'm not in the business of crying for wealthy people. But on the other hand. He's the main reason UTD is a financial powerhouse. He's earned that paycheck. It's just another case of INEOS nickel and diming. We know what the big costs at UTD are: the interest payments, the dividends to Glazers, transfers & player wages. Seems they cutting costs on stuff that will have marginal impact.
It does have me concerned on how they can afford a new stadium
 
oreon said:
I'm 50/50 here. SAF is millionaire, I'm not in the business of crying for wealthy people. But on the other hand. He's the main reason UTD is a financial powerhouse. He's earned that paycheck. It's just another case of INEOS nickel and diming. We know what the big costs at UTD are: the interest payments, the dividends to Glazers, transfers & player wages. Seems they cutting costs on stuff that will have marginal impact.
It does have me concerned on how they can afford a new stadium
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I dont get why you think its a case of Nickel and diming? It is normal what they are doing.. when a business is run badly, under new ownership, overheads will always be looked at and there will be streamlining.

If the club can operate well with 250 less staff, saving 15m a year, it makes total sense, we were just too bloated and that creates unproductivity.

Now, the points you mentioned, since INEOS took over, how much dividends has been paid to the Glazers?

Player wages - There has been a clear effort last summer to reduce the wage bill, we did not sign anyone over 250k in wages, got rid of players on big wages and will continue in the upcoming windows to do the same. Fees, we have recouped the most transfer fees in over a decade under INEOS and finally paid reasonable transfer fees.

Are you telling me saving on 40/50m a year is marginal?
 
SirAF said:
If it was amicable then fair enough, but for me Ferguson IS United. He is entitled to everything after what he did for the club.
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United is United, we had a history before the great man was even born.
 
Amir said:
He doesn't need to have a clue. He needs to bring in people who have a clue.
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Absolutely. That was the problem with the clueless Glazers, bringing in more clueless people to run the football side of things and ruin the club since Ferguson retired as manager. It's now recovery time under INEOS as they focus fully fixing the club and out of huge debt due to Glazer and their buddies. Hard calls has to made now and Ferguson is and forever will be a legend.
 
Leftback99 said:
With all the cutbacks it just strengthens my view that they simply don't want to spend the money to sack Ten Hag.
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Not a solid argument or opinion for that matter. The cost of paying off ETH is a hell of a lot less than the losses we will see on and off the pitch if we continue to churn our bad results. Ineos knows that and are working the problem.
 
DOTA said:
I fail to see what benefit we were getting out of the arrangement that was worth a couple million a year.
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The Glazer's clearly wanted a mechanism to keep Sir Alex onside and not leaking negative stories to the press. This arrangement clearly kept Sir Alex relatively quiet and not adding to the fierce debate about the Glazer ownership....Super league...general reduction in standards of the club etc.

We've always had a tradition of having various club ambassador roles....but I bet very few were as well remunerated as this one!
 
Garnacho's Shoelaces said:
Let’s cut through the sentimentality here—Ferguson’s been getting over £2 million a year for more than a decade since he retired, for what’s basically a ceremonial role. He’s already made tens of millions from United, his books, speaking engagements, and so on. Calling this decision a “disgrace” is a joke. He’s got generational wealth.

United lost £113 million last year, and people are kicking off because the club’s stopped paying a multi-millionaire for doing next to nothing? What’s more disgraceful is that actual staff have been laid off, but we’re supposed to keep throwing cash at a former manager out of some misplaced loyalty? The Glazers might not have had the backbone to make this call, but it’s clear that Ratcliffe is finally prioritising the club’s finances.

Fergie’s legacy isn’t going anywhere, but the idea that we should keep funnelling millions to him is outdated. Focus on the real issues—like getting this club back on track both on and off the pitch—rather than crying over a decision that’s long overdue.
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Reading this was so weird after reading all the comments above. You just copy and pasted them all?!
 
People will forget about this in a few weeks. I didn’t realise he’d be getting so much - that’s not standard regardless of his accomplishments. Those enraged about this are probably staunch monarchists n all
 
Way to go, INEOS. Penny pinching here and blowing an absolute fortune on the receipt of an America's Cup hammering.

How to win friends and influence people.

A genius, that man Ratcliffe.
 
astracrazy said:
You do realise he is still remaining a non-Exec director? They aren't completely cutting ties with him, and will still get paid for that role. I'm not sure what you think is controversial about it.
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Exactly, true Scot that he is, SAF would be raising the roof if he thought someone was picking his pocket.

I would suggest it is exactly what its supposed to be, Sir Jim is cutting the 'fat' wherever and whenever he finds it and SAF knows all about 'making difficult decisions'. It might also be a message to fans and a wider audience, that the old days are gone, we look to the future.
 
Look on the bright side, in 40 years we'll be able to sign another Antony with the money saved, good forward planning by Ineos.
 
peridigm said:
Not a solid argument or opinion for that matter. The cost of paying off ETH is a hell of a lot less than the losses we will see on and off the pitch if we continue to churn our bad results. Ineos knows that and are working the problem.
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If Ineos believed that he'd already be gone.
 
UnsungHero said:
Another club haven't had a manager even close to SAF's level of influence though. He's not just an ex-manager, he made Man Utd what it is today and people would do well to remember that.

£2m a year compared to the horrifying amounts squandered on players and their wages is pretty much insignificant.

The club are currently at a crisis point and this is entirely the wrong time to make this decision. It's another INEOS blunder IMO. As I said, the optics are awful.
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2m is never insignificant, jesus. This is a business. Why should we piss 2m down the drain every year for no good reason? SAF will always be important and revered at the club, doesn't mean he should have a lifetime wage.

Did we pay Matt Busby for a decade after he retired?
 
The club does this while still paying millions in overpaid wages to crap players like Antony. How about you cut those expenses instead?
 
Sir Alex has been retired for 10 years and likes his racehorses so don't think he'll be too happy with this.
 
jim said:
Why? He's made tens of millions from the club, published multiple books etc, almost certainly has more money than he could ever possibly use.

I don't begrudge him what he's been paid, but it's hardly a disgrace to stop paying him.
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I agree. It is hardly a 'disgrace' to finally terminate the extraordinary sums being paid to Sir Alex Ferguson for more than a decade. Yes, he was our greatest ever manager and yes he transformed the club into a global powerhouse - but he was well paid as the manager when delivering that success. At a time when it is evident we are only a shadow of our former selves and that we are falling further and further behind Liverpool and City, the perpetual golden handshake needs to be curtailed. As much as we all love Sir Alex, he has a reputation in the game for avarice: money was always a key driver for the great man. It is time to think of the Club, and Sir Alex should be happy that the payments lasted as long as they did. The focus now has to be finding and appointing the next Sir Alex. A hard but not impossible task for Sir Jim and the leadership.
 
While the sentimentality is nice, it has to stop. We have to move forward. 2million a year is a lot of money.


Ferguson will always be number 1 at this club. Nothing will ever change that.
 
Tom Van Persie said:
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When the seagulls follow the bag of shit....

Doesn't have the same ring to it.

No one is bigger than the club, not even SAF. The club is right to clamp down on nonsensical spending like this, especially when they are making cuts to other much less well paid roles.
 
OmgTheyKilkenny said:
If the Glazers did this people wouldn't have been so accepting of it. feck Jim Ratcliffe, he's a prick.

Didn't he only just cut a few hundred jobs a few months back at United too? As I said before just feels very distasteful and reminds me a bit of Elon Musk with twitter. No thought or care for loyal members of staff who have been here for years, all about cuts and savings for a few billionaires with more than enough money behind them.
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This is the kind of sentimentality SAF himself would never have tolerated when he was running the club.
 
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