Nov 13 2009
Football: Fergie handed £20,000 fine for Alan Wiley ‘fatty’ comments
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has been hit with a fine of £20,000 and a two-match touchline ban for his comments regarding referee Alan Wiley.
Last month, Ferguson effectively called Wiley a ‘fat b******’ and accused him of being unfit to referee in the Premier League. It was, of course, a diversionary tactic to deflect the blame from his side of mollycoddled multi-trillionaires, but many feel the punishment doled out was disproportional to the crime.
When I was at school, if I called someone names I would have been given a slap on the back of my hand with a leather belt. £20,000 is nothing to a modern Premier League football manager, and especially not the most successful of recent times. We need to cause him PAIN! He must suffer for his nefarious acts! — Manchester City manager Mark Hughes
Not all Football League managers share Hughes’s view, however. Peterborough United director of football and ex-Manchester United player Barry Fry is critical of the current ’soft boy’ breed of football referee.
I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I’ve been called a fat butcher numerous times, but I you don’t see me crying to the FA about it. — Barry Fry
Ferguson will pay his fine in twenty manageable instalments after striking a short-term deal with Ocean Finance.
Money experts claim this is foolish as he will ultimately end up paying three times the original fine by October 2010, potentially leaving him completely broke and having to live off Tesco Value products.
Hey, I’m the manager of Manchester United, I can do what I like. Servant! Bring me some more fish finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off! — Alex Ferguson, quoted in the Daily Sport
Alex Ferguson’s ‘problem cupboard’, in which he places all his problems in the hope they will just rot away, is currently full to bursting and smells of burned haddock.
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I think they should be more in line with UEFA, and have a complete match day ban. So he’s not allowed near the changing rooms say 90 minutes before the game, or for 90 minutes after the game, as well as having the spend the game watching it in the away end when playing at home!
With Manchester United’s popularity, though, the likelihood is that any given game of theirs will be on the telly, so Fergie can just sit at home in his bath on the mobile phone to the bench! We need to get him to Antarctica or somewhere with no mobile phone masts or Sky TV.