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Ferguson cries foul Manager's book reveals bribery, bigotry in soccer
Posted: Monday August 02, 1999 10:17 AM
LONDON (AP) -- Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson says in a book due out next week that he was twice a target of bribes and also a victim of bigotry. Ferguson, who steered United to the Premier League and FA Cup titles and the European Champions Cup last season, makes the claims in his autobiography "Managing My Life." In the book, Ferguson said he was offered a 40,000-pound (US$64,400) bribe by Russian agent Grigory Essaoulenko over the transfer to Everton of Andrei Kanchelskis in 1995. Essaoulenko offered him a gift which, when he opened it, contained bundles of cash -- an inducement to release Kanchelskis. Ferguson said he returned the "unwanted gift" to Old Trafford and made club officials aware of it before the money was returned to Essaoulenko. The same agent, Ferguson alleged, also threatened United chairman Martin Edwards before the transfer eventually went through. He said he was also told by an Italian agent interested in taking Ryan Giggs to the Serie A that he and his three sons would "never have to work" if he could arrange Giggs' transfer. The English FA on Monday said it would investigate the claims of impropriety by the agents. Ferguson, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II last month for his service to soccer, said that he was victimized by officials at Glasgow Rangers when he went there as a player because he married a Roman Catholic. Sectarianism has always polarized soccer supporters in Glasgow, where Protestants traditionally support Rangers and Roman Catholics support Old Firm rival Celtic. The 57-year-old Scot launched a scathing attack on former Rangers official Willie Allison, who he described as a "dangerous and despicable" sectarian. "What I sensed coming from Willie Allison, who was in charge of Rangers' PR and who had an alarming influence on the club's elderly chairman John Lawrence, was nothing less than poisonous hostility," Ferguson said. "Allison was a religious bigot of the deepest eye. "I had a Protestant upbringing, but my wife Cathy is Catholic and so were my mother's family." "Managing My Life" is being jointly serialized this week in The Sun and The Times newspapers.
Ferguson also writes about his star midfielder David Beckham. Beckham was
made into the villain when he was sent off against Argentina in the 1998
World Cup. But his recent marriage to Victoria Adams of the pop group the
Spice Girls, and Manchester United's success last season has converted him
into a hero in the British press.
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