Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward will resign amid turmoil over the club’s decision to join a European Super League, with his exit effective at the end of the year.
Woodward’s resignation comes on the heels of reports that Chelsea and Manchester City will withdraw from the Super League, which is widely expected to trigger the proposed league’s collapse. Manchester United is one of the six Premier League clubs that pledged to join the Super League.
“I am extremely proud to have served United and it has been an honr to work for the world’s greatest football club for the past 16 years,“ Woodward said in a club statement, which did not allude to the Super League. “The club is well positioned for the future and it will be difficult to walk away at the end of the year.
“I will treasure the memories from my time at Old Trafford, during a period when we won the Europa League, the FA Cup and the EFL Cup. I am proud of the regeneration of the club’s culture and our return to the Manchester United way of playing.
On Monday, Woodward relinquished his role as a part of UEFA’s Professional Football Strategy Council, where he was a European Club Association representative, in order to pursue the club’s ambitions in the Super League.
Woodward has overseen the club’s daily operations over much of the last decade, which includes transfers and the hiring of managers. He brokered the 105 million euro ($116.4 million) transfer for Paul Pogba in 2016, which set a world transfer fee record at the time.
Woodward was never able to build upon the successes of former chief executive David Gill and manager Sir Alex Ferguson following their respective retirements in 2013. The first, and perhaps most notorious, big decision of his tenure came in 2014 when he fired Ferguson’s managerial replacement, David Moyes, less than a year into his six-year contract.
With Woodward at the helm, the Red Devils won the 2017 Europa League, 2015-16 FA Cup and the 2016-17 League Cup while advancing to the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals just once. The closest United came to winning a Premier League title under Woodward was in 2017-18, when it finished a distant second to rival Manchester City.
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