Fergie's a bully who needs to be punished

Jason Cowley
23 Oct 2009

How much longer should the world of football tolerate the tantrums and discourtesies of Sir Alex Ferguson?

On Tuesday he walked out of a press conference, in Moscow, having been angered by two mild questions about his Football Association charge for disparaging remarks he made about referee Alan Wiley.

He complained, after Sunderland drew 2-2 at Old Trafford, that Wiley was not fit enough to be refereeing a Premier League match. "The pace of the game demanded a referee who was fit," said Ferguson. "He was not fit. It is an indictment of our game."

Was this fair comment or a libel? As it turned out, objective data analysis showed that Wiley, who is 49, was very fit indeed and had performed well during the match. The Referees' Association, perhaps weary of Fergie's intimidation and seizing a chance to strike back at him, correctly defended their man and demanded that Ferguson apologise, which he did, if only grudgingly.

There's no doubt that Ferguson is a strong man, with an unbreakable will. His achievements at Manchester United and, before that, at Aberdeen, when, for a period, he broke the Celtic-Rangers duopoly in Scottish football as well as winning the European Cup Winners' Cup, are indisputably great. His sides play with attacking flair and, like himself, are relentless, unforgiving and brutally efficient.

Ferguson is celebrated for his psychological cunning, for the way he plays "mind games" with lesser men, such as Rafa Benitez or Kevin Keegan, drawing them into intemperate remarks, forcing them to reveal their stress, stretching them out on a rack of their own making. But there's also a terrible bullying quality to him. He harbours grudges. He broods and sulks. He refuses to speak to those whom he believes have wronged him or his family - and that includes the BBC. He is loyal to those he likes or, more accurately, those who are subservient to him, which includes nearly all other British managers in the Premier League and beyond. Sam Allardyce, Alan Curbishley, Phil Brown, David Moyes - they all revere the Scot as a kind of cold-eyed, calculating godfather of the English game. Yet Ferguson will never be loved by the wider public as, say, Bill Shankly, Sir Bobby Robson or even Brian Clough were. Clough was, like Fergie, a bully and a hater of his fierce rivals but, redeemably, he had both a sense of humour and of the ridiculous. Until he started to drink too much, he was wonderfully articulate, which was why he was such a good TV pundit.

Shankly was also articulate with a gift for aphorism. He was a footballing romantic with a sense of the greater glory of the people's game. Fergie, though he is intelligent enough, and, like Shankly, purports to be a socialist, has no such romantic sensibility. For him, it is all about winning. But too often he wins without grace and snarls when he loses or events conspire against him.

Few would disagree with Benitez that referees are intimidated into privileging United at Old Trafford, turning down penalty appeals or disallowing obvious goals. Does Ferguson deliberately set out to intimidate? Perhaps not. But his behaviour creates a hostile climate in which referees have to operate at United. Beware if they cross him!

The FA should hit him hard and take him down for the Wiley remarks.

Clown Sven is laughing all the way to bank

The adventures, such as they are, of Sven-Goran Eriksson (hereafter “Svennis”, as he is known affectionately in Sweden) are of particular interest to this column.

A month or so ago, when Sol Campbell quit Notts County after just one game into a five-year contract,I commented on what a strange and ghostly figure Svennis had become and speculated that his stay as County's director of football might turn out to be a short one, depending on what he was offered next, by whom and when. Well, in the intervening period, the offers have been coming in, from North Korea and Sweden, and Team Svennis have no doubt been out on reconnaissance missions to Pyongyang and Stockholm, perhaps to assess the luxury hotels. (All right, may be they haven't been to Pyongyang but you never know.)

Nowadays, especially among England football fans, Svennis is something of a figure of fun: the cool, cold Scandinavian who turned out to be an improbable lothario and a hapless good-time guy, who stumbled from one scandal to another.

However, he is still in demand, with various offers of part-time jobs and consultancy roles in addition to his gig at County, and he still has the luxury of choice. Perhaps we have underestimated him after all because, with his various pay-offs, signing-on fees and special deals, he keeps on making even more money.
He might present as a clown but always seems to have the last laugh. Is the joke on us?

Reason to be cheerful…

Amid all the hysteria surrounding Jenson Button's triumph in what, because of the Renault scandal, has been another depressing season for Formula One, there was another British triumph that was largely under-reported: Beth Tweddle's gold medal in the gymnastics World Championship, here in London at the O2 Arena. Tweddle has been one of our most resilient competitors over many years now. Let's hope she keeps on keeping on until 2012.