Van Gaal: Woodward has zero understanding of football

Louis van Gaal has stuck the boot in to Manchester United over the decisions that have been made at the club which have seen us go in to decline.

While rivals Manchester City and Liverpool can call themselves champions of England and Europe, United finished sixth and failed to win any silverware.

Van Gaal rightly points out how ridiculous it is that a club of United’s size has someone with no experience in football being appointed CEO by the Glazers.

At Bayern, the people in charge are football men. I always appreciated that. At Manchester United, on the other hand, Ed Woodward was installed as CEO – somebody with zero understanding of football who was previously an investment banker. It cannot be a good thing when a club is run solely from a commercially-driven perspective.

I think you have to change the structure in the organisation of Manchester United because now I think the balance between the football department and commercial department is not right and even slopes over to the commercial.

Reports have suggested that Rio Ferdinand might be named as the club’s new technical director which, again rightly, Van Gaal has criticsed, while also questioning the sense in giving Ole Gunnar Solskjaer the manager’s job permanently.

As a good player, you’re not a good manager or you’re not a good technical director. It’s more or less what is happening now with Solskjaer, ex-players, old boys’ network. It’s not always a good choice. It can be but it’s not always a good choice. I was very surprised (Solskjaer) got it in spite of the winning run at the start. Because Manchester United is one of the biggest clubs in the world that needs a manager with experience and not a manager who has trained at one or two teams and on a lower level.

Van Gaal was talking to German magazine 11 Freunde.