Stam reveals brutal moment Ferguson told him Man Utd had sold him after relationship ‘cracked’
Former Manchester United defender Jaap Stam has revealed how Sir Alex Ferguson broke the news to him that the club had sold him to Lazio.
The ex-Netherlands international spent three full seasons at Old Trafford, winning the Premier League in all three campaigns, while also helping Man Utd win the FA Cup and Champions League once.
Stam was part of one of the most successful periods in the Red Devils’ modern history and will always be remembered by Man Utd supporters.
However, Stam – who also went on to reach a Champions League final with AC Milan – was maybe not given the ending his time at Old Trafford deserved.
The Dutchman claims legendary Man Utd boss Ferguson broke the news to him that he’d been sold to Lazio in a car park near his house.
Stam revealed on The Overlap: “I said to my wife after the game [with the Dutch national team] on the Wednesday or Thursday morning, ‘First thing I’m gonna go to Fergie, I want to talk to him early in the morning’.
“So at 8 in the morning I was there, I got a b******ing again in the office, I just said, ‘I’m going to go, I’m going to leave now and go back home’, not leave the club. My agent phoned me in the car, he said, ‘Where are you?’
“I said, ‘Well I just had a meeting with the manager, didn’t go well, I’m going back home now’. He said, ‘They already sold you,’ I said, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, they basically agreed already with the club and they’re going to call you’.
“So I hang up, phone goes straightaway, not even a minute after that Fergie calls me, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘I’m on my way back home,’ and he lived close by. He said, ‘Stop over there in the parking spot, I’m coming towards you.’
“So he came to me, stepped into my car, told me that they agreed a deal with the club and he brought in a defender on a free, it was Laurent Blanc, he wanted to play with Wes [Brown] and Laurent Blanc.
“I told him as well, ‘I don’t know if I want to leave, if I want to go to Italy as well, to Lazio.’ At first, he didn’t want to say what club it was then he said it, but then the relationship is gone isn’t it, you know? The feeling is not there anymore, it’s cracked.
“I spoke to my wife about it, just signed a new deal with United just a couple of months before. I think we played Blackburn after that, he phoned me in the morning.
“He said, ‘I’m not going to take you in the squad because of the book, because then a lot of the attention goes out to you because of that.’ I said, ‘Yeah but if you don’t take me with the squad, then there’s even more attention, why is he not in there?’
“Then I think the deal has been done within these days, it needed to be done in these 24 hours because otherwise I couldn’t play Champions League football and because of how I am, I wanted to play. But they needed to have that money as well for the budget.”
