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Now they’re 20 years behind the times
By Martin Samuel
PUBLISHED: 18:02 EST, 2 March 2014 | UPDATED: 05:02 EST, 3 March 2014
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We were sitting in a meeting room near Edward Woodward’s office at Old Trafford when his mobile phone rang. It was the night of the Capital One Cup semi-final against Sunderland; the match that was lost on penalties, another unforeseen calamity in a season full of them.
Juan Mata’s transfer was going through, but had not been completed. The last round of negotiations were at a delicate stage. Woodward was a busy man, but this coffee had been some time in the making and he honoured the commitment.
Since taking over as Manchester United chief executive, Woodward had taken several such meetings with journalists, at his request. He seems a decent chap and keen to get his point across.
Man with a plan: Manchester United chief executive Ed Woodward speaks to manager David Moyes
Manchester United are not going to fall into the sea on his watch is the message. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve really got to take this,’ he said, as his BlackBerry lit up - and promptly pressed speaker phone by mistake.
The caller’s voice could be heard, perhaps about to reveal some trade secrets. An expression of panic spread across Woodward’s face. ‘Hold on, hold on, don’t speak, don’t speak,’ he gabbled and ran from the room, desperately punching the keyboard to kill the noise. As an assurance of business as usual at Old Trafford, exiting in the manner of a man whose trousers were on fire was not the most auspicious start.
Look, these things happen. They probably happened to David Gill, too. No businessman, however successful, is an unfailing model of efficiency.
Done deal: United completed the signing of Juan Mata for £37.1m in January - despite their poor league position
More from Martin Samuel...
There will be mornings when Bill Gates can’t find his keys or drips coffee down his nice, clean shirt, be sure of that. Everybody knew the Mata deal was as good as done by then anyway. This little vignette served simply to act as a reminder that it is not just the manager at Manchester United who is finding his way.
Yet Woodward is no fool. If he left the club tomorrow, rivals wishing to utilise his business acumen would stretch down the street. He is chief executive because, as commercial director, he proved to be quite brilliant. And that, in a way, is the root of United’s problem.
Threatened by the prospect of a season out of Europe, Woodward knows instantly what to do. Faced with large gaps in the midweek calendar and a financial hole, United will exploit their brand with exhibition matches abroad. Clubs in the Middle East, Asia and America will be clamouring to play them. It is, commercially, a brilliant idea and will no doubt be adopted by other members of the elite in bleak seasons.
Liverpool could have done it this year, for instance. Yet has the fact they did not, that they stayed fresh, untroubled by midweek commitments, contributed to their revival? Would United’s football benefit from several 6,000-mile round trips, however lucrative? Would this not make the road back harder?
Woodward knows United the commercial enterprise, but what about the needs of a football club? The two sides have operated as separate entities at United for too long. And it has caught up with them this season.
The terrace song is incorrect. There is not only one United. There are two. There is the brand, which is the envy of the European elite - innovative, astute, impressively exploited and monetised until its pips squeak - and there is the football club, which is 20 years behind the times.
Global appeal: Woodward could arrange for United to play exhibition matches around the world if they fail to qualify for Europe
Jetting off: Wayne Rooney & Co could end up playing games around the world in absence of Champions League
More...
This is nobody’s fault; not even that of Woodward or David Moyes. What were Manchester United supposed to do when the greatest manager in the modern game was delivering trophy after trophy, across the best part of three decades, using an antiquated model of dictatorial control? Tell him to stop? Ask him to change? Order him to adopt a more collegiate approach so that his departure did not leave football’s equivalent of a sinkhole in the middle of its operation?
Manchester United, the business, are modern, modern, modern. They have a growing network of partners across every field of commerce, and in every country.
Beeline Vietnam, Bharti Airtel Limited, Du, Globacom, Hutchinson 3, PCCW and STC can all claim to be telecommunications partners of United, depending where you are in the world. Bay, Danamon, Maybank and Shinhan all offer United-endorsed financial services. This way of doing business will one day be the model for all.
Vast improvement: Liverpool have benefited from not playing in Europe this season
United the football club, meanwhile, belong to another time. For all their smart facilities, record-breaking contracts and stable of internationals they are, at heart, almost a Sunday league team: one guy did it all.
Over at the park at weekends it might be a determined old boy who gets the game on. He clears the pitch of dog mess, makes sure the fixtures correspond, paints the white lines, hangs the nets, checks player availability, even gets the odd one out of bed. He organises the raffle on fund-raising nights and gathers in all the subs.
At Manchester United, in a more professional manner, that old boy was Sir Alex Ferguson. He picked the team, he bought the players, he knew the whole family by name - academy kids, too. He courted the parents, and would drive to take tea with them at their little house in Edinburgh, as he did with Mr and Mrs Fletcher, Darren’s parents.
Getting to know the family: Sir Alex Ferguson got to know the families of his players - as he did with a young Darren Fletcher
Tea time: Ferguson used to take time to visit Fletcher's family in Edinburgh
United were Ferguson FC really, right down to the fact that his brother Martin did a lot of the scouting. So while one part of Manchester United moved forwards at an incredible speed, developing areas of the commercial market that others had never considered possible, the football infrastructure was from a bygone age - an age when one man took responsibility and carried it through sheer will alone.
The final stepping stone to this season’s disaster was that this man happened to be a football genius, capable of inspiration on such a scale that nobody would truly understand his greatness until he was gone.
United were a poor side by the end. Who knew? Nobody, because Ferguson never let it show. He dragged that team over the line, time and again. He was the difference between seventh and winning the league by 11 points. And the club were so busy making money that they really thought another manager could do it, too; just like him.
Making the difference: Ferguson dragged United across the line to win a number of Premier League titles
Want to know how in thrall Manchester United were to Ferguson? Who picked Moyes? He was not so much appointed, as anointed. The departing manager chose his replacement, even recommending the terms on which he was employed.
United gave Moyes a six-year deal to ensure stability, because that is what Ferguson valued. In its way, it has served its purpose because, had Moyes been awarded a shorter deal, speculation over his future would have overshadowed United’s season almost from the start.
It is only this commitment that has kept United stable -but nobody envisaged how poor Moyes’s first year would be. It meant the prospect of sacking him at vast expense was not discussed. United, instead, thought about the future in quite old-fashioned, almost sentimental, terms - that if they simply stayed loyal and supportive, it would all work out for the best.
Stability: United gave manager Moyes a six-year deal in the summer
Yet they never leave business to chance like that. This is the club who had a 40-year relationship with Umbro, then deserted them with two years of a contract to run, agreeing to sign with their main rivals, Nike. That was in 2000. In 2007, Nike bought Umbro. As of 2012 Umbro existed only as a subsidiary of the Iconix Brand Group. They currently have one English football team under contract: Stockport County.
Of course, United have scouting networks and contacts like any other elite club. Ferguson wasn’t operating from a potting shed at the bottom of his garden.
Since his arrival, however, Moyes has felt the need to install a high-tech scouting facility, and new recruitment staff. Computers and high-definition screens now display data on the perfect replacement for Nemanja Vidic from sources around the globe.
On the lookout: Moyes has a system in place to find a replacement for Nemanja Vidic
Whether these same gadgets can come up with a reason to sign for a team currently 11 points off a Champions League place is another matter.
A director of football is not the answer. The role is over-rated and often divisive. Ferguson worked without one and was right in thinking Moyes should, too. One look at the struggles of Tottenham Hotspur and, previously, Liverpool show that the club’s vision should be that of the manager, not some executive buffer.
Yet, clearly, when Manchester City have engaged senior executives from Barcelona, and Chelsea can rely on Roman Abramovich and his network of pirouetting agents, Woodward and Moyes are innocents abroad.
Dejected: Manchester United's players have let Moyes down this season
SORRY, DAVE, YOU'RE ON THE WRONG TRACK
Sir Dave Brailsford, performance guru for British Cycling, has been invited to speak to England’s footballers before they depart for the World Cup. It is hoped they may receive an insight into tournament success from his words.
What Brailsford won’t say is how much it helps to be in a sport where huge financial investment, leading to technological advancement and aided by relatively low global participation levels, combine so handily.
One of Great Britain’s gold medallists at the World Track Championships in Colombia is Katie Archibald, who started grass racing in 2011 and made it on to a track a year later.
This is the equivalent of winning the World Cup this summer, having kicked a football for the first time midway through the qualification campaign.
What British Cycling has achieved is outstanding but let’s not pretend its greatness is not also reliant on some very specific circumstances.
The first transfer window, we can now see, was a disaster, United’s hierarchy failing to identify and patch the shortcomings in the squad, and Moyes indecisive to the last.
The next had a marquee signing in Mata but, as the defeat against Olympiacos proved, there are more pressing problems at the back and in the defensive heart of midfield.
Whatever logistical issues United are encountering, Moyes cannot wriggle off the hook. Some of the numbers from Athens were simply shameful. Robin van Persie passed to Wayne Rooney once all match - from the kick-off after the first goal. Ashley Young gave the ball away 24 times. The players are letting him down, but Moyes is responsible for these teams.
Yet United’s problems run deeper than what is seen on the field. A 10-year-old Ford Transit limps along in the slipstream of a juggernaut commercial section. Woodward will know exactly what to do if United are not in Europe next season. Yet unless he also knows how to return them to the summit, top of the bill in Saudi Arabia will swiftly turn into panto in Salford.
Right now, United’s football is playing catch-up; and that is no way for a club to be run.
DRUNK Man Utd fan calls 999 wanting Sir Alex Ferguson
And while we're at it...
It used to be the players that were prima donnas. Now it’s the owners. Barely a week goes by without one of them threatening to leave. If they could put in a transfer request and flounce out of the manager’s office, they would. ‘I’ll never own for you again,’ they would shout, as a parting shot.
Assem Allam holds Hull City to ransom almost weekly, but recently it has been the turn of the Premier League’s pillock-in-chief, Vincent Tan of Cardiff City. Answering his critics, he said: ‘If they p*** me off so much, then I may leave. Perhaps they can find an owner who likes blue, he can pay up and buy me out. I go somewhere and build another red club.’
Speaking out: Cardiff owner Vincent Tan threaten to leave Cardiff if the fans 'p*** him off'
Making their views clear: Cardiff fans protest against Tan and Hull owner Assem Allam
Zlatan Ibrahimovic says he would have destroyed the Premier League. ‘The last time I faced England, which is supposed to be the best players of the Premier League, what happened?’ he said. ‘People need to be reminded that it was the Zlatan show.’ People need to be reminded that it was a friendly, mate. Nice goal, but get over yourself.
Good. Do that. See if we care. They think they are the stars, these guys. They see Wayne Rooney getting £300,000 a week and think it should be them. They want to be the subject of the cheers, the roars, the songs, the merchandise.
Nicola Cortese, at Southampton, started it. He used to be linked to rival clubs, as if he was the centre forward. Cortese may go to AC Milan... top Italian clubs are eyeing Cortese.
And then, guess what? On January 15, the person with the real money at Southampton, Katharina Liebherr, gave Cortese the bullet, since when he has been a free agent. Mystifyingly, no Italian clubs have yet secured his services.
Do you think Rooney, sacked and available for nothing, would still be waiting for a job after 48 days?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...#ixzz2uuPd5Ojn
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- Manchester United could go on world tour of exhibition games if they fail to make Europe
- Moyes has introduced a new scouting and recruitment process at Old Trafford
- Cycling's success is down to the fact it is a very well funded sport
- Why owners and chief executives need to realise they are not the real stars
By Martin Samuel
PUBLISHED: 18:02 EST, 2 March 2014 | UPDATED: 05:02 EST, 3 March 2014
271 shares
171
View
comments
We were sitting in a meeting room near Edward Woodward’s office at Old Trafford when his mobile phone rang. It was the night of the Capital One Cup semi-final against Sunderland; the match that was lost on penalties, another unforeseen calamity in a season full of them.
Juan Mata’s transfer was going through, but had not been completed. The last round of negotiations were at a delicate stage. Woodward was a busy man, but this coffee had been some time in the making and he honoured the commitment.
Since taking over as Manchester United chief executive, Woodward had taken several such meetings with journalists, at his request. He seems a decent chap and keen to get his point across.
Man with a plan: Manchester United chief executive Ed Woodward speaks to manager David Moyes
Manchester United are not going to fall into the sea on his watch is the message. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve really got to take this,’ he said, as his BlackBerry lit up - and promptly pressed speaker phone by mistake.
The caller’s voice could be heard, perhaps about to reveal some trade secrets. An expression of panic spread across Woodward’s face. ‘Hold on, hold on, don’t speak, don’t speak,’ he gabbled and ran from the room, desperately punching the keyboard to kill the noise. As an assurance of business as usual at Old Trafford, exiting in the manner of a man whose trousers were on fire was not the most auspicious start.
Look, these things happen. They probably happened to David Gill, too. No businessman, however successful, is an unfailing model of efficiency.
Done deal: United completed the signing of Juan Mata for £37.1m in January - despite their poor league position
More from Martin Samuel...
- MARTIN SAMUEL: Fergie ran United like a Sunday league team. Now they’re 20 years behind the times 02/03/14
- MARTIN SAMUEL: We've forgiven Suarez, so why can't Terry be player of the year? 26/02/14
- MARTIN SAMUEL: We've forgiven Suarez, so why can't Terry be player of the year? 25/02/14
- MARTIN SAMUEL: Lizzy is a star but Winter Olympic sports exist only as elite events... splashing out on them is a waste of money 23/02/14
- MARTIN SAMUEL: Losing Pardew would be yet another blow for a club that marches with its shoelaces tied together 18/02/14
- MARTIN SAMUEL: England's problem? They are run by a man who aims no higher than mediocre 16/02/14
- Making Abramovich spend a self-castigating £21m on old boy Matic is Mourinho's biggest gamble yet... and Monday night proves Chelsea boss was right 05/02/14
- MARTIN SAMUEL: Angry and devoid of class... Joe's send-off is oh, so Newcastle 04/02/14
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- VIEW FULL ARCHIVE
There will be mornings when Bill Gates can’t find his keys or drips coffee down his nice, clean shirt, be sure of that. Everybody knew the Mata deal was as good as done by then anyway. This little vignette served simply to act as a reminder that it is not just the manager at Manchester United who is finding his way.
Yet Woodward is no fool. If he left the club tomorrow, rivals wishing to utilise his business acumen would stretch down the street. He is chief executive because, as commercial director, he proved to be quite brilliant. And that, in a way, is the root of United’s problem.
Threatened by the prospect of a season out of Europe, Woodward knows instantly what to do. Faced with large gaps in the midweek calendar and a financial hole, United will exploit their brand with exhibition matches abroad. Clubs in the Middle East, Asia and America will be clamouring to play them. It is, commercially, a brilliant idea and will no doubt be adopted by other members of the elite in bleak seasons.
Liverpool could have done it this year, for instance. Yet has the fact they did not, that they stayed fresh, untroubled by midweek commitments, contributed to their revival? Would United’s football benefit from several 6,000-mile round trips, however lucrative? Would this not make the road back harder?
Woodward knows United the commercial enterprise, but what about the needs of a football club? The two sides have operated as separate entities at United for too long. And it has caught up with them this season.
The terrace song is incorrect. There is not only one United. There are two. There is the brand, which is the envy of the European elite - innovative, astute, impressively exploited and monetised until its pips squeak - and there is the football club, which is 20 years behind the times.
Global appeal: Woodward could arrange for United to play exhibition matches around the world if they fail to qualify for Europe
Jetting off: Wayne Rooney & Co could end up playing games around the world in absence of Champions League
More...
- MARTIN SAMUEL: Lame FA to blame for letting Pardew run amok
- GRAHAM POLL: Foolish Pardew is lucky not to lose his job for stupid headbutt... but refs must be able to control technical areas better
- Class of '92 legends Giggs and Neville out watching Salford FC ahead of proposed takeover... while Scholes and Butt tag along
- JAMIE CARRAGHER: Moyes would have been sacked at any other top club... but United must hold their nerve
- Manchester City 3-1 Sunderland: Toure and Nasri strike in quick succession before Navas completes scoring as Pelligrini's side reverse half-time deficit to celebrate Capital One Cup glory at Wembley
- Sportsmail writers shortlisted for a host of prestigious SJA and British Press Awards
This is nobody’s fault; not even that of Woodward or David Moyes. What were Manchester United supposed to do when the greatest manager in the modern game was delivering trophy after trophy, across the best part of three decades, using an antiquated model of dictatorial control? Tell him to stop? Ask him to change? Order him to adopt a more collegiate approach so that his departure did not leave football’s equivalent of a sinkhole in the middle of its operation?
Manchester United, the business, are modern, modern, modern. They have a growing network of partners across every field of commerce, and in every country.
Beeline Vietnam, Bharti Airtel Limited, Du, Globacom, Hutchinson 3, PCCW and STC can all claim to be telecommunications partners of United, depending where you are in the world. Bay, Danamon, Maybank and Shinhan all offer United-endorsed financial services. This way of doing business will one day be the model for all.
Vast improvement: Liverpool have benefited from not playing in Europe this season
United the football club, meanwhile, belong to another time. For all their smart facilities, record-breaking contracts and stable of internationals they are, at heart, almost a Sunday league team: one guy did it all.
Over at the park at weekends it might be a determined old boy who gets the game on. He clears the pitch of dog mess, makes sure the fixtures correspond, paints the white lines, hangs the nets, checks player availability, even gets the odd one out of bed. He organises the raffle on fund-raising nights and gathers in all the subs.
At Manchester United, in a more professional manner, that old boy was Sir Alex Ferguson. He picked the team, he bought the players, he knew the whole family by name - academy kids, too. He courted the parents, and would drive to take tea with them at their little house in Edinburgh, as he did with Mr and Mrs Fletcher, Darren’s parents.
Getting to know the family: Sir Alex Ferguson got to know the families of his players - as he did with a young Darren Fletcher
Tea time: Ferguson used to take time to visit Fletcher's family in Edinburgh
United were Ferguson FC really, right down to the fact that his brother Martin did a lot of the scouting. So while one part of Manchester United moved forwards at an incredible speed, developing areas of the commercial market that others had never considered possible, the football infrastructure was from a bygone age - an age when one man took responsibility and carried it through sheer will alone.
The final stepping stone to this season’s disaster was that this man happened to be a football genius, capable of inspiration on such a scale that nobody would truly understand his greatness until he was gone.
United were a poor side by the end. Who knew? Nobody, because Ferguson never let it show. He dragged that team over the line, time and again. He was the difference between seventh and winning the league by 11 points. And the club were so busy making money that they really thought another manager could do it, too; just like him.
Making the difference: Ferguson dragged United across the line to win a number of Premier League titles
Want to know how in thrall Manchester United were to Ferguson? Who picked Moyes? He was not so much appointed, as anointed. The departing manager chose his replacement, even recommending the terms on which he was employed.
United gave Moyes a six-year deal to ensure stability, because that is what Ferguson valued. In its way, it has served its purpose because, had Moyes been awarded a shorter deal, speculation over his future would have overshadowed United’s season almost from the start.
It is only this commitment that has kept United stable -but nobody envisaged how poor Moyes’s first year would be. It meant the prospect of sacking him at vast expense was not discussed. United, instead, thought about the future in quite old-fashioned, almost sentimental, terms - that if they simply stayed loyal and supportive, it would all work out for the best.
Stability: United gave manager Moyes a six-year deal in the summer
Yet they never leave business to chance like that. This is the club who had a 40-year relationship with Umbro, then deserted them with two years of a contract to run, agreeing to sign with their main rivals, Nike. That was in 2000. In 2007, Nike bought Umbro. As of 2012 Umbro existed only as a subsidiary of the Iconix Brand Group. They currently have one English football team under contract: Stockport County.
Of course, United have scouting networks and contacts like any other elite club. Ferguson wasn’t operating from a potting shed at the bottom of his garden.
Since his arrival, however, Moyes has felt the need to install a high-tech scouting facility, and new recruitment staff. Computers and high-definition screens now display data on the perfect replacement for Nemanja Vidic from sources around the globe.
On the lookout: Moyes has a system in place to find a replacement for Nemanja Vidic
Whether these same gadgets can come up with a reason to sign for a team currently 11 points off a Champions League place is another matter.
A director of football is not the answer. The role is over-rated and often divisive. Ferguson worked without one and was right in thinking Moyes should, too. One look at the struggles of Tottenham Hotspur and, previously, Liverpool show that the club’s vision should be that of the manager, not some executive buffer.
Yet, clearly, when Manchester City have engaged senior executives from Barcelona, and Chelsea can rely on Roman Abramovich and his network of pirouetting agents, Woodward and Moyes are innocents abroad.
Dejected: Manchester United's players have let Moyes down this season
SORRY, DAVE, YOU'RE ON THE WRONG TRACK
Sir Dave Brailsford, performance guru for British Cycling, has been invited to speak to England’s footballers before they depart for the World Cup. It is hoped they may receive an insight into tournament success from his words.
What Brailsford won’t say is how much it helps to be in a sport where huge financial investment, leading to technological advancement and aided by relatively low global participation levels, combine so handily.
One of Great Britain’s gold medallists at the World Track Championships in Colombia is Katie Archibald, who started grass racing in 2011 and made it on to a track a year later.
This is the equivalent of winning the World Cup this summer, having kicked a football for the first time midway through the qualification campaign.
What British Cycling has achieved is outstanding but let’s not pretend its greatness is not also reliant on some very specific circumstances.
The first transfer window, we can now see, was a disaster, United’s hierarchy failing to identify and patch the shortcomings in the squad, and Moyes indecisive to the last.
The next had a marquee signing in Mata but, as the defeat against Olympiacos proved, there are more pressing problems at the back and in the defensive heart of midfield.
Whatever logistical issues United are encountering, Moyes cannot wriggle off the hook. Some of the numbers from Athens were simply shameful. Robin van Persie passed to Wayne Rooney once all match - from the kick-off after the first goal. Ashley Young gave the ball away 24 times. The players are letting him down, but Moyes is responsible for these teams.
Yet United’s problems run deeper than what is seen on the field. A 10-year-old Ford Transit limps along in the slipstream of a juggernaut commercial section. Woodward will know exactly what to do if United are not in Europe next season. Yet unless he also knows how to return them to the summit, top of the bill in Saudi Arabia will swiftly turn into panto in Salford.
Right now, United’s football is playing catch-up; and that is no way for a club to be run.
DRUNK Man Utd fan calls 999 wanting Sir Alex Ferguson
And while we're at it...
It used to be the players that were prima donnas. Now it’s the owners. Barely a week goes by without one of them threatening to leave. If they could put in a transfer request and flounce out of the manager’s office, they would. ‘I’ll never own for you again,’ they would shout, as a parting shot.
Assem Allam holds Hull City to ransom almost weekly, but recently it has been the turn of the Premier League’s pillock-in-chief, Vincent Tan of Cardiff City. Answering his critics, he said: ‘If they p*** me off so much, then I may leave. Perhaps they can find an owner who likes blue, he can pay up and buy me out. I go somewhere and build another red club.’
Speaking out: Cardiff owner Vincent Tan threaten to leave Cardiff if the fans 'p*** him off'
Making their views clear: Cardiff fans protest against Tan and Hull owner Assem Allam
Zlatan Ibrahimovic says he would have destroyed the Premier League. ‘The last time I faced England, which is supposed to be the best players of the Premier League, what happened?’ he said. ‘People need to be reminded that it was the Zlatan show.’ People need to be reminded that it was a friendly, mate. Nice goal, but get over yourself.
Good. Do that. See if we care. They think they are the stars, these guys. They see Wayne Rooney getting £300,000 a week and think it should be them. They want to be the subject of the cheers, the roars, the songs, the merchandise.
Nicola Cortese, at Southampton, started it. He used to be linked to rival clubs, as if he was the centre forward. Cortese may go to AC Milan... top Italian clubs are eyeing Cortese.
And then, guess what? On January 15, the person with the real money at Southampton, Katharina Liebherr, gave Cortese the bullet, since when he has been a free agent. Mystifyingly, no Italian clubs have yet secured his services.
Do you think Rooney, sacked and available for nothing, would still be waiting for a job after 48 days?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...#ixzz2uuPd5Ojn
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Paul Marin -19 is one thing, 20 is a whole other matter. It gets even worse if they win the UCL. *groan*. 
05/18/2011.MU fans naah cough, but all a unuh a vomit?-Lazie 1/11/2015
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