the times | Friday April 8 2022 17
News
The former Manchester United man-
ager Sir Alex Ferguson is still earning
the equivalent of £235,000 a week,
despite retiring nine years ago.
Ferguson’s family company has
posted results showing that the value of
his company rose to £20 million last
year. The Glasgow-born football
legend has earned millions from book
deals, personal appearances and public
speaking engagements. A docu-
mentary film on his life was released
last year.
The latest abbreviated accounts
lodged at Companies House for ACF
Sports Promotions show it has total
assets of £27.5 million and owes almost
£7 million to creditors.
The initials ACF are for his full name,
Alexander Chapman Ferguson.
The accounts show the firm has net
Diego Maradona’s eldest daughter has
claimed that an Argentina shirt put up
for auction is not the one her father
wore when he scored his infamous
“Hand of God” goal against England at
the 1986 World Cup.
Dalma Maradona said that the shirt,
which is set to be sold for £4 million, was
actually worn during the goalless first
half of Argentina’s quarter-final. The
Maradona’s daughter cries foul over ‘Hand of God’ shirt auction
jersey Maradona wore in the second
half belongs to another owner, she said,
declining to name them.
Sotheby’s, which is selling the shirt
for the former England midfielder
Steve Hodge, said it had a “conclusive
photomatch” to prove its authenticity.
Maradona swapped shirts with Hodge
at the end of the match and had
changed strip at half-time because of
the heat at the Azteca stadium in
Mexico City. The shirt has been on dis-play for 20 years at the National Foot-
ball Museum in Manchester.
Maradona scored Argentina’s first
goal when he illegally knocked the ball
past England’s goalkeeper, Peter Shil-
ton, with his hand. Despite England’s
protestations, the goal stood.
Four minutes later Maradona scored
what is recognised in many quarters as
the greatest goal ever when he sla-
lomed past almost the entire English
midfield and defence before slotting theball into the net. England lost and Ar-
gentina went on to win the tournament.
Dalma, 35, is one of two daughters of
Maradona, who died aged 60 in 2020.
She told Argentina's Metro radio sta-
tion: “That ex-England player thinks
he’s got my dad’s second-half shirt but
there’s a confusion. I wanted to explain
that to people so that whoever wants to
buy it knows the truth.”
The shirt will be auctioned online
from April 20 to May 4.T
he number of
greenfinches
spotted in
gardens rose
this year in the
first sign the red-listed
bird is recovering from
an outbreak of disease
that has devastated the
population (Ben
Webster writes).
The average number
of greenfinches per
count in the RSPB’s Big
Garden Birdwatch in
January rose by eight
per cent, which the
charity said was a
“glimmer of hope”
following a steep decline
in the population since
1993 due to the parasitic
disease trichomonosis.
The disease, which
causes lesions in a bird’s
throat, making it harder
for it to swallow food, is
spread through
contaminated food and
drinking water or by
birds feeding one
another with
regurgitated food during
the breeding season.
The RSPB said people
can help slow its
transmission rates by
temporarily stopping
putting out food if they
see ill birds and making
sure that garden bird
feeders and water baths
are cleaned weekly.
The annual survey
involved almost 700,people across the UK
who conducted one-
hour counts in their
garden, local park or
from a balcony and
counted a total of more
than 11 million birds.
The number of people
taking part was up on
pre-pandemic levels of
about 500,000 a year but
well down on the record
of more than a million
last year, when the
RSPB said participation
had been boosted by
people taking turning to
nature for comfort
during lockdown.
Jays increased by 73
per cent this year,
possibly due to last
year’s crop of acorns
being poor, causing
more of them to visit
garden feeders.
The colourful
members of the crow
family collect and hide
acorns in crevices in
trees and in leaf litter to
give them food
throughout winter.The house sparrow
remained at the top of
the rankings as the most
commonly seen garden
bird, with more than
1.7 million recorded
sightings throughout the
weekend. The blue tit
and starling stayed at
No 2 and No 3
respectively.
Wood pigeon was in
fourth place, with their
numbers increasing to
the highest level since
the annual counts began
in 1979. Since then the
average count per
garden has increased
more than tenfold.
The increase in wood
pigeons in gardens is
thought to be partly
linked to the loss of their
woodland habitat in
some areas. The rise in
oil seed rape and cereal
production has also
provided fresh food
throughout the winter. It
was the most numerous
species in counts at
schools, with an average
of eight per school.Feathered friends
1 House sparrow
(average of 4.21 per
garden)
2 Blue tit (2.79)
3 Starling (2.75)
4 Wood pigeon (2.47)
5 Blackbird (2.27)
6 Robin (1.47)
7 Goldfinch (1.40)
8 Great tit (1.39)
9 Magpie (1.25)ALAMYGreenfinches
have been in
decline for
almost 20 years
because of
diseaseGerard Couzens, Kieran Gair
Diego Maradona, who died in 2020, with
his daughters Giannina and Dalma, rightComeback for
greenfinches
Ferguson still nets £235,000 a week
assets of almost £20.6 million at the end
of June 2021. That was an increase of
more than £3.5 million from the previ-
ous financial year.
The company’s assets include
Ferguson’s football memorabilia
collection which is valued at £2 million
and is displayed at the Manchester
United Stadium Museum and the
National Football Museum, which is
also in Manchester.
The accounts show the firm, which
has its registered office in Aberdeen,
has invested millions in a number of
US-based investment funds including
more than £1.4 million in one called
“Distressed Managers”. The fund is a
subsidiary of the New York-based
finance giant Goldman Sachs.
Its investment portfolio is valued at
almost £20 million on the balance sheet
and the firm has more than £2.2 million
held in a bank account. The accounts,which cover the period up to June 30,
2021, state its revenue is derived from
“appearances, image rights and royal-
ties.”
While Ferguson and his wife,
Cathy, have been listed as directors
of ACF since 1988, a change came in
2012 when their three sons joined
the board in preparation for
their father’s career change.
On November 29, 2012,
twins Jason and Darren
Ferguson, 50, and eldest
brother Mark, 53, also
became directors of ACF
and now run the com-
pany’s day-to-day opera-
tions.
Ferguson, who retired
from the Old Trafford hotseat in May 2013, still works 20 days a
year as a Manchester United ambassa-
dor.
His autobiography has sold more
than one million copies and he is
available for motivational speak-
ing for which he is believed to be
able to ask for fees of £100,000 a
time.
The 80-year-old also
managed Aberdeen, the
Scotland national team,
St Mirren and East
Stirlingshire.
As a player he was a
striker who scored
more than 170 goals
during stints at
Queen’s Park, St
Johnstone, Dunfermline
Athletic, Rangers, Falkirk
and Ayr United.
Ferguson had emer-gency treatment on a brain haemor-
rhage in May 2018 and spent several
days in intensive care at Salford Royal
Hospital near Manchester.
In the documentary Sir Alex
Ferguson: Never Give In he tells how he
feared that he would never speak again
and would lose his memory after
waking up from surgery following the
near-death experience.
He said: “I lost my voice, just could
not get a word out, and that was terrify-
ing — absolutely terrifying. Everything
was going through my mind: is my
memory going to come back? Am I ever
going to speak again?”
Ferguson was appointed manager of
Manchester United in 1986 and, during
his 27 years at Old Trafford, won 38
trophies including two Champions
League titles, five FA Cups and 13
Premier League titles. He was knighted
in 1999.Stuart Macdonald
Sir Alex Ferguson’s football
memorabilia is worth £2m