Alex Ferguson has asked for a face-to-face meeting with the Glazer family to seek assurances that the changes among Manchester United's hierarchy will not impinge on his work as manager. If those pledges are not made he will reluctantly give greater consideration to retiring, particularly if he can do so on a victorious note by beating Arsenal in the FA Cup final next Saturday.
Ferguson will refrain from clarifying his position until he has talked directly with Malcolm Glazer and his son Joel.
The manager wants to hear their vision for the future and, though he has previously been sceptical, he was encouraged by the chief executive David Gill's address to an emergency meeting of the club's staff yesterday.
Gill, who will be asked to remain as the chief executive, assured the 500 full-time employees there was no need to fear redundancies.
"The meeting was really positive," one worker later reported. "Gill said the running of the club would remain the same, with more or less the same staff. They have had several meetings with the Glazer family and Gill described their intentions as 'good'. He said they would not be ploughing so much of their own money into the club otherwise, and that basically they want people to give them a chance."
Gill's conciliatory tone differs from the language he had used in citing United's objections to the plans and may have something to do with the fact Glazer wants him to remain at the club to provide some continuity.
Many of United's supporters would brand Gill a traitor were he to collaborate with the Americans but, with an annual income not far off £1 million, he will be reluctant to sever his ties with the club.
One certainty is that his decision will be pivotal as to whether Ferguson decides to stay. If Gill leaves, Ferguson would lose a trusted colleague and then be answerable to Joel Glazer, who will move into Old Trafford with a reputation for being difficult and with a contact book devoid of names from the football world.
"I always look forward, and I do so again, but we'll just have to wait and see what is going to happen," has been Ferguson's only brief comment to date. He cancelled his weekly press conference yesterday and when his assistant Carlos Queiroz was asked about the takeover he replied: "The best contribution I can make is no comment."
The club's three non-executive directors - Roy Gardner, Ian Much and Jim O'Neill - will be the first casualties of the Glazer regime and effectively said their goodbyes at a plc board meeting yesterday, while several of the club's football board directors will spend the next few days deliberating over their own futures.
The six-man board, which includes Bobby Charlton, have been made aware that supporters' groups will ask them to stand down with immediate effect once Glazer takes power. The idea has already been privately discussed among some directors, one of whom has spoken of "the end of our football club as we know it".
Supporters' groups are planning a prolonged period of disruption and the militant Manchester Education Committee is expected to resurface over the next few days, having already pledged to ensure "a warm welcome (for Glazer) no matter how large the phalanx of bodyguards".
More seriously for Gill, the same group released a statement in February warning that it would seek reprisals against any high-ranking official who co-operated with Glazer. "Any board member who may be coveting a place in the management structure of a Glazer regime is advised immediately to abandon such hopes," it read. "Collaborators will be treated as such. The movements and whereabouts of all board members will continue to be of the utmost interest to us."
The threats are being taken seriously within Old Trafford and the possibility of violence can be accurately gauged by the storming of a dinner laid on by the US investment bank JP Morgan, Glazer's main lenders, at Manchester Art Gallery on Thursday night. Wine was thrown over guests and the police were called.
Other fans were holding the first board meeting last night of FC United, the club they say they will now support.
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