A former Manchester United player once asked Gary Neville to be his representative during contract negotiations because Sir Alex Ferguson did not like agents.
Ferguson is one of the most successful managers of all time and won 38 trophies during his 26-and-a-half-year spell at Old Trafford, including 13 Premier League titles. He firmly believed no player was bigger than the club, which caused friction between agents.
Danny Simpson, who came through the ranks at United and played eight senior games under Ferguson, tried to secure a new contract at Old Trafford and needed Neville to help him out with Ferguson. Neville was the captain and, like Simpson, a right-back.
"He actually negotiated my contract with Sir Alex," Simpson told the Undr The Cosh podcast. "Sir Alex didn’t like agents, he was scared of getting people involved.
"Gary Neville was helping me and I was learning from him. I spoke to him asking for advice and Neville offered to help. I got him to go in with me, so it was me Gary and Sir Alex chatting about my contract! I was like, 'Is this happening?'
"Neville went in and said ‘Listen, he’s taking over from me. You’ve got to give him more than that [Ferguson's initial contract offer].' He got it bumped up. But I do look back now and I think maybe they were both in on it."
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Simpson, who went on to play more than 400 professional games and won the Premier League title with Leicester, also revealed how much Neville helped him during his time at United. "He helped me loads," added the former Sunderland and Newcastle defender.
"I was there for a few years with him and I tried to base my game on how a full-back was back then. He told me, 'Defend well and everything else is a bonus.'"
Ferguson's indifferent opinion of agents is no secret. He had a particular dislike of the late Mino Raiola, who represented Paul Pogba. Ferguson allowed Pogba to leave Old Trafford in the summer of 2012 after failing to agree on a new deal with Raiola and his client.
"There are one or two football agents I simply do not like and Mino Raiola, Paul Pogba’s agent, is one of them," wrote Ferguson in his 2015 book, Leading . "I distrusted him from the moment I met him... We had Paul under a three-year contract, and it had a one-year renewal option which we were eager to sign.
"But Raiola suddenly appeared on the scene and our first meeting was a fiasco. He and I were like oil and water. From then on, our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to ingratiate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus."
Recalling the episode with the Daily Mail in 2016, Raiola said: "I had two meetings with Mr Ferguson. The first was nasty on his part... Mr Ferguson is entitled to his opinion and, though I don’t have to agree with it, I have a great deal of respect for him."
