Of SAF, Machiavelli, Greatness and a book
Sir Alex Ferguson's ( SAF) autobiography was released a few days ago
“Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.”
"the appearance of virtue" is more important than virtue itself" - Niccolo Machiavelli
"Machiavellian" -a by-word for treachery, sneakiness, ambition, and ruthlessness.
Not too many will disagree that this description fits SAF
You'd not be able to point to too many successful people in the world without some of these negative attributes. Unfortunately!
I'm not sure why the revelations in this book are surprising to some though. There have been discussions about the hypocrisy and double-standards of the great Manager on many occasions in the past
For SAF- the end justifies the means ( another Machiavellian principle)
He has a strong sense of right and wrong even in the face of overwhelming odds ( check out the link to a Guardian article on the book here and a Racehorse tiff which describes this famous sense here
I'm surprised how the title of the book escaped editing though!
My Autobiography!! ( 'My the book I wrote about my life' )
Call the redundancy police, somebody!
'Autobiography' alone should have sufficed, in my opinion
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