United board back Ferguson

Manchester United’s under-pressure board has fired a warning shot at John Magnier (pictured) and JP McManus by declaring: “We are lucky to have Sir Alex Ferguson.”

Confirmation that Ferguson has signed a one-year rolling contract that should extend his stay with United beyond 2005 has done nothing to ease the growing tension over Magnier and McManus’s next move in their increasingly bitter dispute with the Old Trafford hierarchy.