Alex Ferguson says international friendlies are just money making jollies

Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson has slammed international friendlies as money-making jollies.

England travel to Qatar to take on Brazil in a high-profile friendly on November 14, and Ferguson wishes they were staying home.

"It's always a grey area between the Premier League coaches and the managers of England, Sweden or Italy. All the international managers have their jobs to do and we support that, particularly when it comes to competitive games,” The Sun quoted Ferguson, as saying.

" Friendly games are a different matter and I don't think any league coach agrees with them. I think even some of the international managers themselves could do without the friendly games. But the football associations from every country warn them that sometimes it's a nice day for them, a nice sunny trip for them,” he added.

In the past five years, the world's richest club have flown to China and Japan three times, South Korea and South Africa twice and also visited America, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Malaysia for friendlies before and during a season.

That all adds up to a staggering 87,372 air miles... or more than three times the circumference of the planet. In terms of flying times, it is a grand total of 203 hours and 17 minutes in the air - almost 8½ days of jet lag for United's players to overcome.