THE future is bright, the future is orange, if you adapt that well-known advertising slogan to reflect the colour of David Moyes’ hair.
What the future is not at Old Trafford is yellow-and-green. Those bright colours of protest against the Glazer family’s controversial ownership can be quietly folded away now.
In choosing their next manager, Manchester United have opted for a man with the same accent and the same spirit as Sir Alex Ferguson. There could be no more emphatic way to spike the guns of what is left of the revolt among the supporters.
They could have settled upon a quick fix which would have traded the fabric and legacy of the club for more quick profit ahead of a cash-laden dash for the exit some time in the future. They could have gone for a hired gun like Jose Mourinho, whose only mission would have been to guarantee an instant, till-jangling continuation of the success upon which they have built the most mighty commercial operation in world sport. It’s a popular way of modern business. It is what, in truth, I expected.
Instead, Moyes represents a dynastic appointment. He may not wish to be portrayed as an identikit Fergie, and he will have his own plans and ideas. But the core football values of the two men are as similar as their Glaswegian backgrounds.
Out in Glazerville, Florida, they have agreed to land the man most of the fans would have chosen.
It means that under the Glazers’ command, the big cash-in will continue and the sponsorship deals will continue to roll in. The list of the club’s backers on the official website is nearly as long as the roll-call of honours.
But the codes of the club, established and nurtured by both Ferguson and Sir Matt Busby before him, will remain in place too. Tradition is an excellent selling point. The future, if it works, will be rooted in a training-ground, red-brick, man-of-the-people’s view of the game and how it should operate as well as in the concrete canyons of Wall Street.
That represents a pretty smart double act put in place by the American family whose methods of taking control of United – loading them with debt – made them so vilified.
Of course the Glazers are in it for the money, like nearly all football moguls. But which United fan will be unhappy if the club’s financial power continues to grow and grow with a serious football man in charge of the team and its development? In fact, it simply has to if they are to keep pace in Europe with the new wealth of clubs like the Champions League finalists, Bayern Munich, the oligarch-funded clubs of the east and the ever-expanding Spanish giants.
The acid test will come if the handover of power in the Old Trafford dugout and its adjustments leads to any prolonged period without success. Say, two seasons.
These are the financial figures which Moyes has to support on the field and which will test the Glazers’ nerve if the pots dry up for a while.
According to the experts Deloitte yesterday, United’s annual revenue for 2011/12 was £320.3million. That’s an increase of 14 per cent every season from the £25.2m brought in during Ferguson’s first title-winning season in 1992-93.
The Glazers’ massive expansion of business operations has happened during the most successful period in the club’s history. The pressure on Moyes – unprecedented for a newly appointed manager – will be to keep those noughts ticking over on the balance sheets.
This is where the continued presence of Ferguson at the club as director and ambassador may prove critical.
He will remain a business beacon for United. His name will attract even more deals. He will represent, too, a vast fund of Champions League and transfer market knowledge on tap at Moyes’ disposal.
The fear may be that Fergie will overshadow the new man. But surely, these two kindred spirits have worked out already how to handle that.
Everything they have done in football suggests the shrewdness required to resolve that worry.
Ferguson was a centre-forward, Moyes a centre-back. They seem made for each other, however.