Turmoil may be too strong a word for it. However, there was unquestionably some serious turbulence at Old Trafford yesterday when it became clear that the widespread assumption that Manchester United would throw their weight - both financial and emotional - behind Alex Ferguson as he prepares for his last season as manager had been obliterated by United's pay offer for the ambassadorial role Ferguson wanted once he retires as manager. Ferguson considered the offer derisory.

It is not the first time Ferguson has been upset by a United board's valuation of his worth. It means that, rather than "moving upstairs" at the end of next June when his contract as manager expires, Ferguson will terminate his links with the club he joined in November 1986.

Suggestions that Ferguson was ready to go one step further and resign as manager are bogus. United might end his contract prematurely, but Ferguson would not walk away from wages of £1.7 million sterling per annum.

However, for the first time when discussing his future, the 59-year-old Ferguson said that he might consider offers of work from other clubs. Previously Ferguson had been emphatic in his stated intention of not being a manager anywhere else. Asked about that possibility yesterday, Ferguson said: "I don't know." He has never said anything approaching that before.

Adding to the confusing scene yesterday, Ferguson's assistant Steve McLaren has been sounded out about the Southampton job and is expected to be offered it this weekend.

It was believed Ferguson planned to go public with the split after United's final Premiership game at White Hart Lane against Tottenham Hotspur this afternoon, but on a day of growing speculation in Manchester - Ferguson cancelled his weekly Friday press conference - it became increasingly apparent that the tension at Old Trafford was such that it could not be disguised.

"United have failed to come up to my expectations and I have now decided that I will not take on any `roving ambassador' role and will sever all connections with the club," Ferguson said.

"The decision has been made, I'm going to leave the club. I'm disappointed because I thought things might work out. But it hasn't and that's all there is to it. I'm definitely going."

Ferguson later appeared briefly on the club's own television station, MUTV, a case of the family advertising its own unwelcome secrets.

No amount of United gloss could cover over the fact that this is an acrimonious situation. It will be uncomfortable for both parties from now on and is sure to affect Ferguson's buying intentions over the summer. With next year's European Cup final in Ferguson's home city of Glasgow, he had been hoping to bow out on the highest of highs. Now it seems that the board and Ferguson may part when it comes to transfer policy.

Ferguson had been given the £19 million to purchase Ruud van Nistelrooy from PSV Eindhoven at the second attempt, but, as he no doubt pointed out, that was from the 2000-01 budget, not 2001-02. The board may have felt that with Ferguson departing next summer and no replacement in position that the van Nistelrooy money was sufficient to appease the Scot.

But Ferguson is privately of the opinion expressed by Roy Keane that this United side is at the end of its cycle and requires significant surgery and reconstruction. For that to happen United would have to spend lavishly.

Ferguson wants a budget comparable with those at Leeds United and Liverpool and it is thought he will pursue the players such as Newcastle's Kieron Dyer, whom he had earmarked despite their high potential cost. Once Ferguson recommends them to the board then the ball is in their court and they will be blamed if United do not make the big-name signings this season's Champions League campaign highlighted United need.

That, though, is a confrontational stance and will expose the leading directors such as Peter Kenyon to unprecedented scrutiny. Kenyon is said to have told Ferguson this week that players would have to be sold before others come in. Dwight Yorke and Nicky Butt are effectively up for sale.

How Kenyon and the board react to yesterday's news and the stories that are sure to follow in tomorrow's papers - one of which has a ghosted Ferguson column - is now top of the agenda.

McLaren is not considered of sufficient stature by the United board to be Ferguson's successor. He will be aware that whoever comes in after Ferguson is likely to bring their own staff and that he will be surplus to requirements.

McLaren's contract with United expires on the same day as Ferguson's and it would be unnatural if he was not weighing up his future options. Ferguson is sure to be on McLaren's side, advising him to maximise his potential both in football terms and economically.

The row has leant unexpected gravitas to today's fixture at White Hart Lane, though what is said after it will be watched more closely than anything happening on the pitch.