Mourinho Reveals He Signed to Replace Ferguson at Man Utd, Then Chose Chelsea Instead

Jose Mourinho has confirmed one of football's most persistent rumours is true: he had a signed agreement to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United in 2013, only to tear it up at the eleventh hour and return to Chelsea instead. The revelation comes in a new Netflix documentary series about his career, and it forces a fresh reckoning with everything that has happened at Old Trafford since Ferguson's retirement.

Instead of Mourinho, United appointed David Moyes, a decision that kicked off more than a decade of managerial upheaval the club has never fully recovered from. The documentary suggests that upheaval was never inevitable. It was one phone call away from a very different outcome.

The Secret Deal That Almost Rewrote Manchester United's History

According to Mourinho, the agreement was concrete, not theoretical.

"When I left Real Madrid, I signed to go to Manchester United after Sir Alex," the 63-year-old said in the documentary, as reported by BBC Sport.

Ferguson corroborates the account in the same programme, confirming he personally sat Mourinho down to discuss the succession.

Ferguson's Own Account

"He was offered the job, yes. I sat him down and explained the situation. As far as I was concerned, he was accepting. And then, within hours, it changed," Ferguson said, per BBC Sport.

That detail matters. This was not a casual approach or a stalled negotiation. Ferguson, the most successful manager in Premier League history with 13 top-flight titles across 26 years at Old Trafford, had identified his own successor and believed the deal was done.

Why Mourinho Chose Chelsea Over Old Trafford

The reversal, by both accounts, happened fast and emotionally. Ferguson describes receiving a distressed phone call from Mourinho within hours of the agreement being struck.

"One night, he phoned me and he was crying and he says, 'Alex, I can't take it. I've given my word to Chelsea and I'm not going to break my word'," Ferguson recalled.

Loyalty Over Logic

Mourinho had already won back-to-back Premier League titles with Chelsea in 2005 and 2006, and it was that history, not football logic, that pulled him back to west London ahead of a return spell in 2013. He framed the decision as one of the heart rather than career strategy.

• Mourinho won two Premier League titles with Chelsea (2005, 2006) before this decision
• He was fresh off a turbulent third season at Real Madrid, sacked after finishing 15 points behind Barcelona in 2012-13
• Chelsea's Roman Abramovich had already sacked Mourinho once before rehiring him in 2013

"One thing is love for football, another thing is love for a certain club. I think this is more powerful than love for football and fundamentally, after Real Madrid, I needed to feel that I'm loved," Mourinho explained, according to ESPN's coverage of the documentary.

ESPN's account describes Mourinho as having "tearfully turned back" on the deal, a slightly more dramatic framing than the BBC's, but the substance is identical across both outlets: a signed agreement, an emotional phone call to Ferguson, and a choice driven by personal loyalty rather than opportunity.

"For me to lose the chance to be the coach to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson was dramatic, but I

The Moyes Fallout and United's Decade of Managerial Chaos

With Mourinho gone, United turned to Moyes, who took over in the summer of 2013 on Ferguson's recommendation. The appointment is now widely regarded as the moment United's modern decline began. Moyes lasted less than a full season before being sacked, and the club has cycled through managers ever since without recapturing the stability of the Ferguson era.

A Club Still Searching

The list of permanent United managers since 2013 tells its own story: Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Mourinho himself, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Ralf Rangnick, Erik ten Hag and Ruben Amorim have all held the role, with no title win to show for it. Had Mourinho arrived in 2013 rather than Moyes, it is reasonable to think United's trajectory over the following decade looks materially different, even if the counterfactual is impossible to prove.

Mourinho's Real Old Trafford Reign, and Why the Fairytale Might Not Have Happened Anyway

Mourinho did eventually get his chance at Old Trafford, three years later than planned. He replaced Louis van Gaal in May 2016 and spent two and a half seasons in charge, winning the League Cup and Europa League before results collapsed and he was sacked in December 2018.

A History of Combustible Third Seasons

That pattern of early success followed by dressing-room fallout is familiar. His third season at Real Madrid in 2012-13 ended in acrimony after a bitter rift with captain Iker Casillas, who made 725 appearances across 25 years at the club. Former Real midfielder Sami Khedira said the fallout poisoned the entire squad, telling the documentary:

"After that, the relationship between Jose and many, many players was broken, like Cristiano [Ronaldo] and the Spanish guys, Casillas, Sergio Ramos. And those players were super, super important for the atmosphere in the locker room."

Mourinho's actual United tenure, and his second Real Madrid departure years later, both ended in the same way his best jobs tend to: trophies early, discord late. It is a pattern that tempers the romance of the 2013 what-if. The documentary invites United fans to mourn a lost golden era, but Mourinho's own managerial record since suggests the fairytale version of 2013 may never have survived contact with reality.

What happens next

Mourinho is now back at Real Madrid for a second spell, having returned in May this year, and the documentary arrives as part of the promotional backdrop to that reunion. There is no suggestion from either Ferguson or Mourinho that this changes anything about United's present, but it will sharpen scrutiny of the club's ongoing managerial search under the club's current leadership.

For United supporters, the story adds fresh context to a decade of underachievement, even if it cannot rewrite it. The more useful lesson may be the one embedded in Mourinho's own subsequent United spell: even the right manager, on paper, does not guarantee stability at a club still searching for its post-Ferguson identity.