The 71-year-old retired last summer after 26 years as manager of Manchester United, with whom he won 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, four League Cups and two Champions League titles.
In his book, which is released on Thursday, Ferguson addresses a wide range of subjects and issues that shaped his reign at Old Trafford.
Ferguson on David Beckham
In his final season with us, we were aware that David's work-rate was dropping and we had heard rumours of a flirtation between Real Madrid and David's camp. The main issue was that his application level had dropped from its traditionally stratospheric level.
The confrontation between us that caused so much excitement around the game was an FA Cup fifth-round tie against Arsenal at Old Trafford in February 2003, which we lost 2-0.
David's offence in that particular game was that he neglected to track back for the second Arsenal goal, scored by Sylvain Wiltord. He merely jogged. The boy just kept on running away from him. At the end I got on to him. As usual, with David at that time, he was dismissive of my criticism. It's possible that he was starting to think he no longer needed to track back and chase, which were the very qualities that had made him what he was.
He was around 12 feet from me. Between us on the floor lay a row of boots. David swore. I moved towards him, and as I approached I kicked a boot. It hit him right above the eye. Of course he rose to have a go at me and the players stopped him. 'Sit down,' I said. 'You've let your team down. You can argue as much as you like.'
I called him in the next day to go through the video and he still would not accept his mistake.
As he sat listening to me, he didn't say a word. Not a word. 'Do you understand what we're talking about, why we got on to you?' I asked.
He didn't even answer me.
The next day the story was in the press. In public an Alice band highlighted the damage inflicted by the boot. It was in those days that I told the board David had to go. My message would have been familiar to board members who knew me. The minute a Manchester United player thought he was bigger than the manager, he had to go. I used to say: 'The moment the manager loses his authority, you don't have a club. The players will be running it, and then you're in trouble.'
David thought he was bigger than Alex Ferguson. There is no doubt about that in my mind. It doesn't matter whether it's Alex Ferguson or Pete the Plumber. The name of the manager is irrelevant. The authority is what counts. You cannot have a player taking over the dressing room. Many tried. The focus of authority at Manchester United is the manager's office. That was the death knell for him.
Ferguson on Manchester City's title win
Naturally it was worse this time because Man City were the ones celebrating at our expense. And worse, because we'd had the league in our grasp and thrown it away. Of all the setbacks I endured, nothing compared to losing the league to City.
Ferguson on Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano was the most gifted player I managed. He surpassed all the other great ones I coached at United - and I had many.
The only ones who could be placed near him would be a couple of the home-produced players, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, because they contributed so prodigiously to Manchester United for two decades.
Real Madrid paid £80m in cash for him [in 2009] and do you know why? It was a way for Florentino Perez, their president, to say to the world: 'We are Real Madrid, we are the biggest of the lot.'
Ramon Calderon, Perez's predecessor, had claimed the previous year that Cristiano would one day be a Real Madrid player.
I went to Carlos Queiroz's house in Portugal to find the boy expressing an urge to go to Real Madrid, and told him: 'You can't go this year, not after the way Calderon has approached this issue'. I said: 'I know you want to go to Real Madrid but I'd rather shoot you than sell you to that guy now. If you perform, don't mess us about, and someone comes and offers a world record fee, then we will let you go.'
I did well to calm him down. I told him the reason I was refusing to sell him that year was because of Calderon.
I said: 'If I do that, my honour's gone, everything's gone for me, and I don't care if you have to sit in the stands. I know it won't come to that, but I just have to tell you I will not let you leave this year.'
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