Mourinho Confirms He Agreed to Replace Ferguson at Manchester United

Jose Mourinho signed to replace Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United in 2013, then walked away. The 63-year-old has confirmed it himself in a new Netflix documentary series about his career, ending more than a decade of speculation with one flat sentence: when he left Real Madrid, he signed to go to Manchester United after Sir Alex. Ferguson, who won 13 Premier League titles across 26 years at Old Trafford before retiring in 2013, backed the account up. The job was offered, he confirmed. Mourinho changed his mind and rejoined Chelsea instead, and the Premier League’s next decade was shaped by that reversal.

What Mourinho and Ferguson said

Mourinho states in the documentary that he signed for Manchester United at the point he was leaving Real Madrid in the summer of 2013. Ferguson, speaking in the same series, confirmed that the job had been offered to him. Both sides of the story now line up, which is what makes this different from a decade of unsourced reporting.

United instead appointed David Moyes, publicly framed at the time as Ferguson’s own choice of successor. Moyes was sacked in April 2014 without completing his first season, and United have not won a Premier League title since Ferguson walked away.

Why he chose Chelsea instead

Mourinho returned to Chelsea in June 2013 for a second spell at Stamford Bridge. It was not a wasted move. He won the Premier League and the League Cup in 2014-15 with a side built around Eden Hazard, Diego Costa and Nemanja Matic, before being sacked in December 2015 following a disastrous title defence.

The Chelsea he returned to was a squad ready to win immediately. The United job in 2013 came with an ageing spine and a squad that Ferguson had famously dragged to a title through force of personality. Mourinho, in effect, chose the shorter route to silverware.

He got the United job anyway, three years too late

Mourinho was appointed Manchester United manager in 2016, after Louis van Gaal. He won the League Cup and the Europa League in his first season and finished second in the Premier League in 2018, the club’s best league finish since Ferguson left. He was sacked in December 2018.

By then the rebuild he would have inherited in 2013 had been attempted twice and abandoned twice. The signings of Paul Pogba for a then world-record fee in 2016 and Romelu Lukaku in 2017 were patches on a squad that had already lost three years of planning.

What it means for the Premier League title race that never happened

The 2013-14 season is the pivot point. United, the reigning champions, finished seventh under Moyes and missed European football entirely. Manchester City won the title, Liverpool came within a slip of it, and Chelsea under Mourinho finished third in a transitional year before winning the league the following season.

A Mourinho-led United in that window would have had first pick of a rebuild while the club still carried champion status and Champions League football. Instead, the Premier League power balance shifted decisively towards Manchester City, who have since dominated the competition.

Mourinho’s position now

According to BBC Sport, Mourinho is now back at Real Madrid for a second spell, thirteen years after the exit that set this whole episode in motion. The timing of the confession is pointed: he is reopening 2013 at the exact moment he reopens his own Madrid chapter.

For United supporters the revelation lands somewhere between grim and absurd. The club has cycled through managers, sporting directors and ownership disputes since 2013 while chasing a title it has not won since. Learning that one of the most decorated managers of the modern era had already signed, and then reconsidered, is another entry in a long ledger of near misses.

FAQ