LIFE BAN

Owen Gibson
The Guardian

Sir Alex Ferguson has extended his self-imposed boycott of the BBC in protest at a documentary that turned the spotlight on links between the Manchester United manager and his football agent son Jason into a "lifetime ban".

He has now informed BBC Sport's head of football, Niall Sloane, that he will never talk to the corporation again, despite the increasing amount of airtime it devotes to the game.

Although Ferguson is well known for taking umbrage against newspapers and broadcasters he thinks have wronged him, Sloane had hoped the row would have blown over by now. But when he contacted the United manager to see if he would reconsider, he was informed that Ferguson had now decided never to speak to the BBC again. The BBC is understood to have written to the League Managers Association to ask it to intervene, but the organisation replied that there was nothing it could do.