Interview with Sir Bobby Charlton

Q — Manchester United must be strong contenders for a Nomination for the Laureus World Team of the Year Award this year? They have already won it once in 2000.

I've been giving a lot of thought to this, because you don't want anyone to think you're cocky, but we've got one out of the way. We won the [Premier League] Championship. We then play in Moscow in the Champions League Final. If we won that, yes. Would I be allowed to vote for Manchester United? I look forward to that.

We also have Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been such a unique player this year. He's scored 41 goals. He's the type of person who is targeted as well, and he's been marvellous all season with phenomenal success. He's scored goals you wouldn't believe.

Q — What are Ronaldo's main qualities?

He has a vision and a drive. He knows he's a good player – maybe he thinks he's the best player…and maybe he is. But you can only tell that when you‘ve won something. He's had so many accolades this year, because he does exciting things. Kids love to see dribblers, he dribbles and controls the ball, he's so fast. When he goes he's like greased lightning. Added to that, you give him a free kick and he's bending the ball around the wall and over the top. It's something almost everybody can't do, but isn't it lovely watching him?

Q — Recently there have been some not so thrilling Champions League Finals. Is Ronaldo one of the people who will explode onto the big stage?

It will be interesting to see how they [Chelsea] try to hold him, but he's got this fantastic talent and the desire to be the best. I'm not saying he's the only player Manchester United have got; we've got some fantastic players – Wayne Rooney, we've got Paul Scoles…we've got marvellous players. If Ronaldo scores in the Champions League Final, and we're able to win, I think he'll be hailed as one of the best footballers we've ever seen – he's got a marvellous talent and he is really good – the type of person I would love to see Laureus give one of their awards to.

Q — If he is nominated as Laureus World Sportsman of the year, he follows a pretty impressive list of nominees in previous years – Kaka, Ronaldinho, the other Ronaldo (Brazil), does he stand up among that list?

Absolutely. He has the whole of his career in front of him still. He's a sensational player, a unique player – such a pleasure to watch. He's typical Manchester United. You never know what to expect. He is a brilliant player.

Q – There were reported to be problems between Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney after the 2006 World Cup, but has that all gone now?

There's no problems between the two of them. I don't think Wayne Rooney has a selfish thought in his mind. Not at all. He would do anything to win the game and Ronaldo likes that. He's a different type of person, but they both have a healthy respect for each other.

Q — You've had some big games with Chelsea, does playing an English team in the Champions League Final make it easier or harder for you, will it be a different sort of game?

I would think that it's a little easier playing Chelsea because we know them. We watch them, we see them on television and we've seen just about every goal they've ever scored this season, but if we were playing a European team that might not be the case, so we're very familiar with each other. I think that the preparation and the excitement, and the fact that we've won the [Premier League] Championship may make their approach quite different now. We will have to wait and see. I think that whatever happens it will be fantastic. It's known throughout the world that English football is popular because of the excitement, because the teams really go for it. It's never based on defensive football. They are going to watch the best of English football [in Moscow] instead of the best of Italian or Spanish.

Q – Sir Alex Ferguson has a phenomenal record as manager.

It's unique. In 16 attempts, he's got 10 Championships. It's unbelievable really. For a manager to actually stay in his job is unique. It's unique to go past three or four years. He's had major success and brought in different players from other teams. He has given them the feeling that playing here is something different and something you should enjoy. If we win in the Champions League Final, it's been said in the media here, that maybe he is the best manager there's ever been.

Q – Everyone knows about Ferguson's qualities as a motivator, but something interesting is that teams don't always manage to re-invent themselves, but he has?

It's completely different players. He thinks ahead, he knows the state of the game, he keeps his mind on it. He's totally into football. He loves every minute of it. He's a born manager. We are really, really lucky that we have him. Genius is a word you might use in another context, but if there was a genius in football terms, for a manager, it would be him.

Q – Always at this time of year, people wonder about Sir Alex's plans to retire

When we scored our second goal at Wigan [to clinch the Premier League Championship], he jumped up and ran down the pitch. He's just as smart and as sharp as he's ever been as a football manager. It's always the challenge, always a new challenger. New money's coming in – Russian money to Chelsea, Thai money, American money, they're investing in our game here and it's changing all the time, but he's ready for them. He's such a mind and has such a work ethic. He knows where he's come from and what he has to do to succeed.

Q – Can you compare the 1999 team with the 2008 team. Obviously this team has a big future?

If we win this, there will be comparisons made. I would say it's this one, just because Alex has had to change the entire team. If he'd not done this, we wouldn't be going to the Champions League Final. Gary Neville is one of the few left from that original team.

Q – Marcel Desailly, a fellow Laureus Academy Member, is an ex-Chelsea player. Have you talked to him about the match?

I don't know if he was there [Chelsea] long enough to feel the same about his club as we do about Manchester United, but we'll shake hands and knock knuckles out of each other afterwards.

Q – Can you predict a score in Moscow?

The only thing I'll say is that there will be goals. Each side has a healthy respect for each other and will know that if they make a mistake or have a lapse of concentration that it will disastrous. Both teams will be going for it. It should be sensational.

Q – Didier Drogba and John Terry may be unable to play. Will this affect the game significantly?

At the moment we have no injuries and you need a bit of luck. No injuries, no suspensions. Everyone seems to have come back on their feet. Drogba [of Chelsea] maybe will stay out, but I don't know the details. I hope John Terry plays. He's a great professional. It may be the only opportunity [to play in a Champions League Final] that he will have in his career. It would be great if we [both] had our full sides out.

Q – This is a big year for United in many ways – 50 years since Munich. Can you put into words how special it would be for United to win the Champions League this year?

Alex instils in every player the history of the club, why it's special to be at Manchester United. He asked myself and Nobby Stiles to go in and have a chat with the players when it was known that this year was the 50th anniversary, and we all said when we were having our little chat how great it would be if 50 years afterwards, after Munich, we could win the European Champions League. Because it was those players pioneering the actual competition that got things going. The Champions League, the European Cup [as it was] then and you see how big it is now. I don't know how many billions will watch the match next week. So there is a bit of emotion for Manchester United actually being there on the 50th anniversary when these players died going into Europe, pioneering what we see today.

Q — Laureus is 10 years old. What is your assessment of where Laureus is today?

It's a marvellous achievement, with some really, really good projects, which was the idea of Laureus in the first place, that it should have famous sports people from all sports coming in and helping through their own fame to work on projects throughout the world which help children; helping to ensure they get fed, that they don't get involved with crime. We've had a great bunch of Academy Members involved. I was a founder member of the Laureus Academy, and I was ever so proud to be asked to be involved to help Laureus.

I was always aware that politicians down the line had missed the boat somehow, and when you go into a country, even politicians have problems trying to communicate, but when any of our Academy Members went into a country, they were welcomed with open arms; the media wanted to know what they were doing there and suddenly there was an awareness of problems within these countries which politicians couldn't do, but sports people could.

One of the things which was first mentioned to me was the Midnight Basketball League in Atlanta. Between 12 and 4 people would go and play basketball, and it halved the crime rate. That to me was an example of how sports people could achieve something politicians couldn't do.

Then there was one of the first places I ever went to on a project visit, Mathare in Kenya, where they had seen they were getting no help from the government and all these young people in the slums had decided to do something for themselves. They formed a football league, for which they got two points for a win, one point for a draw and one point if they helped clear the slums up on a Saturday. And suddenly, everyone wanted to play for this team. They were all proud and wanted to do this and help and then eventually they started getting into the football in a true sense and got into the Cup of Champions. They won the Kenyan League and went on to represent Kenya throughout Africa. I remember that they also got nominated for the Nobel Peace prize. And we helped in a little way. We gave them a football pitch and a tractor, because they had been playing only on little patches of ground in the slums, but we gave them a proper football pitch, proper goal posts, proper offices so they could build better pitches for themselves.

I go to the Far East a great deal with my club business, with Manchester United, and was fortunate enough to link some of it into a visit to Cambodia. Cambodia has a major problem with mines – we'd also seen this in Bosnia. The scheme uses football to teach kids not to go into the minefield and what to do if they did find themselves in a minefield.

We had a visit to one of the minefields and they showed us what they were doing [to clear mines] and how they were doing it. One of the things I felt was that this unbelievably slow. How expensive it is when you find a mine to blow it up. It was an absolute nightmare for me. Someone told me that to clear the mine fields in Cambodia at the rate they were going would take 100 years. We saw one mine being blown up. I could not believe that anyone could ever survive. It was such a big blast, but such a tiny little mine that anyone could stand on.

The company that was helping find the mines and blow them up in Cambodia was a company from Manchester. I thought that this was just so much of a coincidence. I had a meeting with them when I came back and they all said they would put their minds to finding ways [to find mines more quickly]. I was told that Manchester University were helping this company, so I went to speak to a few of the professors about it. This summer I'm going to Cumbria for tests as they are working on ways of finding mines quickly.

I was so sickened by what happened in Bosnia and what happened in Cambodia, and what's happened in various parts of the world. People are making mines and selling mines. I can't do much about that politically, it's beyond me. But, we – as sports people – we can do some good. We will have all our Academy Members, who will get behind a project and it looks as though we will be able to do something.