Fergie's letter to Ji-Sung Park after the match

[bonheurjh]

Never seen him writing letter like this.

But anyway hopefully park plays as a starter for us just once more as a last chance... is my personal wish.

I know he is worth nth and completely useless as a starter... but its just my tiny little hope lads....

[bonheurjh]

[bonheurjh]

The last bit says : Ji sung! Whenevr you need my help, come and find me.
I will forever regard you as one of my best players.

And at the middle Fergie mentions about park's knee condition.


Bit mad though. Freakin foxy to sell a player with a permanent knee problem. And we are so stupid not to do medical test in depth.

[Joon]

Wow, I wonder how many players received that kind of letter from SAF after leaving Manchester United. It's the first time I've seen anything of the sort from SAF.

Upon digging a bit, it appears that SAF sent the letter some time after Park made the transfer and before August 21st (date of the oldest article I found referring to it), not after the recent game. I was only able to find a video of it, so I took some screenshots. Most of them are quite blurry, whereas the one clear shot is close-up and shows only a part of the letter. Here is the link to the video I looked at:
http://news.jtbc.co.kr/article/artic..._id=NB10194194

The letter reads as follows:

Dear Ji Sung,

Please forgive me for not having written to you before now to thank you for your loyalty to me and Manchester United and to wish you good luck in your new club, but also to explain my reasons in letting you go.

My disappointment was that I didn’t give you the football that you wanted, and needed. It must have felt to you that I was ignoring you but that is far from the truth, there was no player I could trust as much as you in terms of your professionalism, loyalty and determination. I was always conscious of your knee injury and therefore always liked to keep you fresh and of course this wasn’t fair to you and understandably didn’t enjoy that decision. It is something that still plays on my mind especially as I now have a grandson who still won’t speak to me for letting his favourite player move to another club, but I hope you understand the reasons fully now and how difficult a decision it was.

In the time you played was a credit to your outstanding ability and I know it is shared by all my staff as you were in my opinion one of the most loyal and honest players I have had the pleasure to work with and I was proud to have had such a well mannered man in my team.

You are without doubt a wonderful ambassador for football, and the way you settled in and got an excellent command of the English language so quickly was a credit to your determination and enthusiasm not only for football but for life, and on behalf of everyone at the club I wish you success with your new club.

Ji sung I will always look upon you as one of my players and if you ever need my help you know where I am. Finally I wish you and your family every happiness and Good luck.

Yours sincerely,
/s/ Alex Ferguson

Obviously, SAF is exaggerating a bit about his grandson to lighten the mood, but SAF's respect for and appreciation of Park is evidenced in and by his letter.

[Kirill]

This is a joke, right?

[Del]

This is a joke, right?

Why would it be a joke....?

SAF always played JSP in every big match they had, be it potential title deciders or champions league semi's / finals. Not sure why you find it hard to believe.

[Kirill]

The tone of the letter, just sounds a bit fishy to me.

[Joon]

The tone of the letter, just sounds a bit fishy to me.

Nah, it's legit. I wasn't aware that there was such a letter until bon made the OP, but from searching I can see that this letter's been written about pretty extensively in the Korean media.. here's a google search of it:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient...iw=986&bih=817

Even page 10 is full of relevant articles, blogs, posts, etc.. haven't looked beyond that but there appears to be more.

The above video is from JTBC, one of the big cable networks in Korea (if I remember correctly it's owned by the largest newspaper in Korea), and there are many others from other networks. I don't know where that letter is being kept, but you can see in the video that it's encased to preserve it.

Just before our recent game against Manchester United, SAF dropped by the QPR bench to shake hands with HR and staff, and then he also shook hands with Ji Sung Park before returning to his own bench. Photos were taken of that little happening, and many news articles were written about it; SAF's letter from last year resurfaced in many of these articles, which is why bon was confused about when the letter was sent.

Oh, and btw I just typed the above as accurately as I could from the letter being shown in the video. Maybe got a couple words wrong because they were fuzzy.

[Kirill]

Maybe it worked for Park but it is not working for me.

"Dear John,

I am leaving you.
It's not you, it's me.
Honestly!

Your friend,

Alexa"

[Norths]

Hopefully he'll be receiving a letter from our club this summer, one that involves the p45

[Joon]

Dear John,

Please don't leave me.

Love,
Harriet

[BronxQPR]

it just another case of tony fernandes having his pants pulled down again, everyone is mugging the poor (or not so poor) guy off!!! hes not gonna stick around!!

[Joon]

it just another case of tony fernandes having his pants pulled down again, everyone is mugging the poor (or not so poor) guy off!!! hes not gonna stick around!!

Park may be sold if there's a decent offer for him, but if given a choice he would probably opt to stay.

Just this morning I read the below interview from Park in which he states that, "Even if I could return to the time when I made the decision to move to QPR, with [full] knowledge of our current situation, I would have made the same decision. I had faith that it was the best decision, so I do not regret it."

Park also commented that, "The mood of the team has changed and players are very motivated. We can overcome [this difficult situation / relegation]."

Original article at:
http://sports.news.nate.com/view/20130226n09514

I need to finish some work, so I can't translate the rest.

[Rangers77]

Knee injury? Nice of Hughes and Rigg et al to miss that or ignore it. Par for the course. TF should sue those fu@kers for embezzlement.

[Joon]

Knee injury? Nice of Hughes and Rigg et al to miss that or ignore it. Par for the course. TF should sue those fu@kers for embezzlement.

Nah, Park didn't have a knee injury at the time of his transfer. He has had various knee injuries throughout his career, which sometimes kept him sidelined but usually minor. Park's knees have been steadily declining over the years, but they'll probably last a few more seasons.