Observing Alex Ferguson's retirement regime from afar, it's tempting to wonder whether he regrets not retiring sooner.
His post-career, as we've written before, demonstrates the advantages of being a retired great in the era post-football's gentrification. While Bill Shankly was barred from the Liverpool training ground by his successors, Ferguson, in addition to his United directorship, jets around the planet like the head of some global corporation, giving lectures on management to CEO types at Harvard.
And Roy Keane will be delighted to learn that Ferguson has another book out, cementing the former Manchester United manager's reputation as one of the most prolific authors of our time.
This one is called 'Leading', and it's written with Michael Moritz, the chairman of Sequioa Capital, a private investment firm which, in a mixture of the Telegraph's and the companies' own words, ''helped shape and organise” such corporate giants as Apple, Cisco Systems, Google, PayPal and YouTube'.
Them's the kind of guys Fergie hangs out with these days. One wonders whether they talk much about Ferguson's days as a shop steward in Glasgow in the 1950s/60s.
At the time of his retirement, rumours emerged that a bereavement in the family prompted his decision to quit after the 2012-13 season.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Ferguson confirms that it was the death of his sister-in-law that precipitated his decision to retire.
Otherwise, Ferguson said he would 'definitely have carried on'.
His wife was very close to her sister and was, in her husband's view, 'isolated' after her death.
I saw she was watching television one night, and she looked up at the ceiling. I knew she was isolated. Her and Bridget were twins, you know... But when I told her this time I was going to retire she had no objection whatsoever. I knew she wanted me to do it.
The new book is dedicated to his sister-in-law.
