FERGIE BACK IN THE DOCK

From The Times:

Sir Alex Ferguson lamented last month that no one listens to his complaints about the alleged iniquities of the Barclays Premiership’s fixture list. He was wrong. The FA’s ears were burning and it has asked the Manchester United manager for an explanation of comments he made in support of José Mourinho’s pro-Arsenal conspiracy theory.

“It is always Chelsea who get the worst fixtures to play, while Arsenal always have the best ones,” Mourinho said, citing Chelsea’s five away league fixtures after each of their first five Champions League games this season, while Arsenal will have five home league fixtures on corresponding weekends.

Ferguson, who was fined by Uefa, the sport’s European governing body, in 2003 for suggesting that the European Cup quarter-final draw had been fixed for Real Madrid’s benefit, backed the Chelsea manager. “He’s dead right, by the way. He’s spot on,” Ferguson said. “You look at the fixtures Arsenal have after European games — it has been going on for years. He’s only taken a year to find that out. I have been complaining about that for seven years and no one listens to me.”

Chelsea and United have common concerns about the level of power that David Dein, the Arsenal director, wields at the FA. Now the FA has written to Ferguson asking him to elaborate — standard practice when a manager seems to call into question the game’s integrity. Formal charges of bringing the game into disrepute are not expected to follow for either manager; the FA issued a stern rebuke to Mourinho on July 13 and said that Dein has no influence on disciplinary procedures.