Six Years Of Ed - Part 6
Woodward's Hatrick...
Whether Mourinho should have been sacked or not, at this stage one thing was abundantly clear – the system was not working. United, under Ed Woodward’s leadership, had routinely failed to make critical decisions that could have corrected the negative direction of the club. Extortionate transfer fees were being paid out to clubs who time and time again were exploiting Woodward’s complete lack of experience in handling the transfer business of a football club. Agents were demanding ludicrous wages for players, and Ed’s response – just as has been his response with everything United have done since Fergie’s retirement – was to throw money at the problem hoping that would solve everything.
Where an experienced director of football would have quickly seized the opportunity to enact a plan that would ensure United’s success the second it became apparent that Moyes’ appointment was not working, Ed floundered. And floundered. And floundered. He has demonstrated his sheer incompetency in directing a football club at every opportunity that has presented itself. The only success he has had in the role since being appointed is extending United’s now vast range of corporate sponsors, once famously saying:
“Playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business.”
If ever a quote summed Ed Woodward up, that is it. He is a man with absolutely no concept of what makes a successful football team, but then, that isn’t why he is vice-chairman of Manchester United. The sad thing is, he’s absolutely right – United do not require success on the pitch to make money, and he has proved that time and time again. Any club outside the oil clubs would suffer enormously from such incompetent transfer dealings. But not United. The transfer fee for Pogba – a record at the time – seems like terrible business when you consider how completely ineffectual he has been as a player. Any football man in charge of running a club would wince at the thought of paying so much and receiving so little on the pitch.
But Ed Woodward is not a football man. And when you discover that United made one hundred and ninety million pounds on “Pogba” shirt sales in the first three weeks of his signing, you start to see the logic behind how United’s business is being done, and why, at the time of writing, Pogba is rumoured to be being offered a new five hundred thousand pound per week contract to stay - despite publicly criticising and falling out with the manager under Mourinho, posting sneering, sniggering selfies at the news of his sacking, being rated the midfielder who has statistically spent more time walking around the pitch than any other midfielder in the Premier League, and who, most recently, has flat out said on camera that he wants to leave the club, with Juventus after resigning him.
But, Ed thinks he’s worth a lot of money in merchandise, so he’s not for sale.
