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How Ed Woodward Went From Mancehster United’s Zero To Hero

Ed Woodward

Football is always in a state of flux. One moment you are flying high near the top of the table, the next you find yourself near the bottom, struggling to stay afloat. It is not just players who have their highs and lows and find themselves going from hero to zero in the blink of an eye, managers go through the same process as well.

As a result of the money that is currently there in the Premier League, results have become more crucial than ever. Such is the competitive nature of football at the moment, that if you aren’t moving forward, then you will be left for the lions to feed. When Sir Alex Ferguson finally retired, Manchester United had the arduous task of maintaining the lofty standards the Scot had set in the last two decades.

The arrival of another Scot in David Moyes ended in disaster last time around as the club finished without European football, for the first time since the inception of the Premier League. The Scot was crucified as an abject failure and his legs were taken from under him as his tumultuous reign ended in just 10 months.

Apart from Moyes, one man who was blamed for all of United’s troubles was the club’s executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward. The investment banker who helped the Glazers take over the club failed miserably in the transfer window. Although several high-profile targets were sought after, none of them materialized. The club was shot down by every major target and they ended up over-paying for a player who would go on to symbolize everything that was wrong with the Moyes era.

After the failure to acquire any marquee signings, there were question marks about Woodward’s suitability to the role. Some wondered whether he had the necessary credentials to take over from David Gill as the man who oversaw the transfers and closed the deals. Although the vitriol towards him withered as the season went on, a sense of frustration was still there at Woodward’s inability to perform his role properly.

But, as the season went on, Woodward started to show why he was given the role in the first place. The commercial aspect of the club is one that has grown in leaps and bounds in the recent past and the main man responsible for that has been Woodward. The club’s world-record deal with Chevrolet and Adidas wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the investment banker from Chelmsford.

This season marks the start a new world-record shirt sponsorship deal with Chevrolet worth £47m-a-year, which is more than double their previous deal with Aon, which was worth £20m a year. Next season will see the start of another record-breaking deal with Adidas, who will be the club’s kit provider, in a deal that is worth a mind boggling £750m over 10 years. The new deal will see the club pocket a tidy £75m a year, which is again more than double the current deal with Nike which earns them around £30m a year.

Aside from these two major deals, the club currently has 29 sponsors and commercial partners who are helping the club balance the books and make them one of the most profitable sports teams in the entire world.

While Woodward’s record off the pitch has never been in doubt, his transfer dealings which came under much scrutiny last season, took a turn for the better this time around. While last summer’s window ended with the club over-paying for Fellaini, this summer has seen them snap up arguably one of the finest strikers in the world right in Falcao. The difference in the two deals speaks volumes for how far Woodward has come, in terms of his transfer dealings.

From Fellaini to Falcao, via Mata, Shaw and Di Maria, the Englishman has shown that he is no slouch in the transfer market as well. But arguably his biggest signing was that of Louis Van Gaal. The Dutchman has already started to get rid of the dead wood and get them in the right direction.

Woodward has gone from being a villain last summer to being the architect of the club’s most-productive transfer window in their history. Even with all of these signings, you can be sure that his head will be on the chopping block once again in the next window if he doesn’t sign anyone, for such is the competitive nature of football these days.