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A combination of two files picture shows Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson (L) during the FA Cup third round replay football match Manchester United vs West Ham United at Old Trafford in Manchester, on January 16, 2012 and Real Madrid's Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho reacting during the UEFA Champions League football match Real Madrid vs Manchester City at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid on September 18, 2012. Manchester United will resume their historic rivalry with Real Madrid on February 13, 2013 with Jose Mourinho talking up the eagerly-awaited Champions League clash as the game "the whole world is waiting for." (AFP)
Sir Alex Ferguson will step down as Manchester United manager at the end of the season after 26 years in charge.
Ferguson, who took the reins of United in 1986 and is the longest serving manager in English football, would be a hard act to follow and suitable candidates for arguably the biggest job in world football are thin on the ground.
Everton manager David Moyes, a fellow Scot, has been installed by British bookmakers as a short-priced favourite, while Jose Mourinho's impending departure from Real Madrid also puts him in the frame, though most think the Portuguese only has eyes for Chelsea.
Other candidates include Borussia Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp, Manchester United's evergreen winger Ryan Giggs and former United striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who has coached Molde to back-to-back Norwegian titles in his two years in charge.
Rumours of Ferguson's retirement may prove greatly exaggerated, however.
The Scot went public with his plans to walk away from the club at the end of the 2001-02 season, only to have a change of heart and decide to stay on and burnish his legacy.
That stability and success has also helped United off the field, and the club are on target to hit revenue and profit targets set shortly after their shares floated in New York last year in a listing that valued United at $2.3 billion.
The flotation also allowed United to cut debt to 367 million pounds at the end of 2012 from 439 million pounds a year earlier.
The prospect of Ferguson standing down after a quarter of a century in charge could unsettle investors, however.
"The biggest challenge for United will be when the time comes for a new manager - whenever that may be," Dan Jones, head of the sports business group at Deloitte, said last month.
Investors and fans have every right to be nervous about United's succession plans given the troubled times the club endured in the wake of Matt Busby's retirement in 1969.
In Busby's first spell in charge (1945-1969), United won five league titles, a pair of FA Cups and the club's first European Cup but his departure brought a period of instability that saw the club go without a trophy for seven years and suffer relegation to the second division in 1974.
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