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It was around 8pm last Friday night when a tainted hero took the microphone in the function room of a Manchester hotel and resumed the complicated business of being Ryan Giggs in 2025.
There was a cold drizzle against the windows behind him, which looked out to Old Trafford, 50 yards away across the puddles, and in front was a congregation of 160 who had paid to hear his classics over a three-course dinner.
Scandals are rarely served with the starters at these occasions and fresh material of any description is almost as infrequent. But shortly after the desserts were cleared, there was a yarn so new that even Giggs was unaware of it until 10 months ago, when he chanced upon a discovery during his time as director of football at Salford City.
The question to tee it up had been fairly routine – were there chances for him to leave Manchester United back in the day? After briefly revisiting Inter Milan’s interest in 2003, Giggs headed off in an unexpected direction.
‘When Salford played Manchester City in the FA Cup third round in January, me and Karl Robinson (Salford’s manager) went in after the game,’ Giggs told his audience. ‘We were speaking to Pep Guardiola and a couple of the sporting directors who were originally all at Barcelona together.
‘We were chatting for half an hour and as we were leaving one of them said, “We tried to sign you (for Barcelona) in 2000”.
‘I went, “What?” And he goes, “Yeah, we rang Sir Alex Ferguson up and asked if we can sign Giggs”.’
Giggs let that dangle a second before coming in with the punchline. ‘I said, “Well, what did he say?” Sir Alex told them to “f*** off”.’
Ryan Giggs is now on the after-dinner circuit charging punters up to £299 to hear stories of his playing days
One story told at a Manchester hotel last Friday involved his manager at United, Sir Alex Ferguson, telling Barcelona where to go when they tried to sign Giggs in 2000
Those windows at Hotel Football, a venture co-owned by Giggs and Gary Neville, could have been blown to shards by the roars of his admirers.
They still loved him in there. Always will. In their eyes, Ryan Giggs will forever be running down the wing, preserved as the most decorated British footballer in history. Their one-club man, timelessly floating over the ground like the cocker spaniel of Ferguson’s recollection, chasing a piece of silver paper on the breeze.
But we know why it’s far trickier than that now. Just as we can see that sport’s greatest institutions are no longer risking a hairdryer to request his services.
It was five years ago this month that Giggs was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his former girlfriend, Kate Greville. It’s been a couple of weeks longer since he led Wales to a 1-0 victory away in Bulgaria on October 14, 2020, in the last match he oversaw as a manager for any team.
Today, aged 51, Giggs exists in a strange place. A man whose reputation in the present requires a certain amount of cognitive dissonance towards the past from those who still adore him.
If he feels any awkwardness about it, it doesn’t show in these rooms, on these engagements, where so much of his public life is largely conducted these days. On this occasion, in slacks and a jumper, Giggs somehow pulls off the impression of a guy with little to be worried about.
The first time he stood trial, in 2022, we heard his denials against accusations of assault and controlling or coercive behaviour, but the court was also told, from the other side, of a headbutt and a threat to do the same to Greville’s sister. In a different episode, she said he threw her naked into a hotel corridor.
The jury was undecided and the second trial, in 2023, collapsed when Greville declined to give evidence, leaving Giggs cleared in the eyes of the law but open to interpretation beyond the steps of court.
Giggs leaves Manchester Crown Court with his legal team in 2022 during his trial over using coercive and controlling behaviour against an ex-girlfriend. The case went to a second trial which collapsed when his former girlfriend declined to give evidence
Giggs' relationship with his former United team-mate and former fellow Salford City investor Nicky Butt (right) has been strained at times
Whereas Wales moved on to a World Cup in 2022, Giggs’s career has seemingly been frozen in time, with his connections to football appearing to grow ever more tenuous by the year.
When Daily Mail Sport contacted Salford City this week, they depicted his current association to the League Two club as merely ‘advisory’.
Until recently, they had been his main point of contact to the frontline of the game, having initially arrived as an investor among the Class of '92 cohort in 2014 before branching out to become their director of football. Occasionally, he would sit on the bench next to Robinson.
But David Beckham and Gary Neville acquired the shares of Giggs, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and Phil Neville in the summer and so the journey appears to have ended. A filing with Companies House last month shows that his directorship ceased on May 8 and a source loosely described Giggs as ‘on hand’ if Robinson wants advice. It is very much a fringe association.
The significance of his reduced input at Salford should not be overplayed – it is understood that Giggs, like the rest of the Class of '92, had been pumping serious money into the club and the time felt right to relinquish responsibility.
But it is equally true that Salford City was once a comfort zone for Giggs, who has a one-year-old daughter with his girlfriend Zara Charles. The club was a place of familiar, friendly faces.
If there were exceptions, they might include his relationship with Butt – a source told us their dynamic has had moments of strain in recent years – and also the reported discomfort of a number of female fans around Giggs’s involvement. The weight of such disgruntlement is unknown, but predominantly Salford was a domain where one half of his past seemed to count for more than the other.
Outside the club, where fewer allies reside, Giggs has yet to find anyone to grant his wish of a return to management. It is something he has yearned for and he admitted crying at home when, having handed control of the Wales team to Rob Page during the early stages of his legal battle, he watched their 2-0 win over Turkey at the European Championship in 2021.
A filing with Companies House last month shows that Giggs' directorship of Salford City ceased in May and a source loosely described Giggs as ‘on hand’ if manager Karl Robinson (left) wants advice
Giggs won 13 Premier League titles with Manchester United but is not in the Hall of Fame
There is no obvious end to the wait. So far this season, there have been 18 managerial changes across the Championship, League One and League Two and no one has been publicly linked to a man with 13 Premier League titles.
Precisely how much of that silence traces to the court case is unknown. But there is a previous example of Giggs’ private life being a factor in his efforts to get a prominent position.
Daily Mail Sport understands that in 2016, when Giggs interviewed unsuccessfully for the managerial vacancy at Swansea City, who were then in the Premier League, at least one member of the club’s hierarchy winced about the earlier revelations of Giggs’ eight-year affair with his brother’s wife.
A greater concern centred on an underwhelming interview, with the job ultimately going to the American Bob Bradley, but the situation indicated that these scandals are not parked at the door.
We might assume the same reasons are tied to his ongoing omission from the Premier League’s Hall of Fame, which has inducted 24 players since its creation in 2021 including nine of Giggs’s former team-mates.
When the 2025 shortlist was announced in September, Giggs, the winner of 35 medals and a six-time addition to the Premier League’s team of the season, was once again left out of the nominations.
The prospect of getting a new job was not raised by the floor last Friday. The closest we came was Giggs’s tribute to Craig Bellamy, with the speaking engagement happening to fall the day after Bellamy’s Wales were paired with Bosnia and Herzegovina in the semi-finals of a play-off to reach the World Cup.
Giggs’ private life has hurt his efforts to get a prominent position - in 2016, when Giggs interviewed for the vacancy at Swansea, at least one member of the club’s hierarchy winced about the revelations of Giggs’ eight-year affair with his brother’s wife
Giggs has a one-year-old daughter with his girlfriend Zara Charles - the pair have been dating since 2021
‘It was a good campaign,’ Giggs told us. ‘It’s a tough job because you are expected to qualify for Euros and World Cups after what Chris Coleman did in 2016. You have to live up to that and if you don’t you failed. Craig Bellamy is doing a really good job.’
Whether Giggs felt he could have done the same or better was left unsaid. In another world, it could have been him. Just another unspoken thought in the room.
For now, those after-dinner sessions are mostly the limit of Giggs’s visibility. He will be at the Mercure Chester in December, Preston’s Lostock Hall in February, Wigan in March, Poplar Social Club in Accrington in April. Others too, no doubt.
Within the warm confines of a friendly room, Giggs still shows flashes of flair and that old change of pace.
Skipping through anecdotes with John O’Shea and Wes Brown, both of whom advocated for a statue in Giggs’s honour, his audience lapped it up when he detailed the great Nou Camp heist of '99. And they nodded along when Roy Keane was named a marginally better captain than Bryan Robson.
But how they howled, from the £129-a-head seats to those who spent £299 for the 'premium package' (extra drinks and a signed shirt), when Giggs got to the tale of how Ferguson once launched a boot into David Beckham’s face in 2003 for not tracking his runner against Arsenal.
‘David wasn’t bothered until he saw the blood,’ Giggs told us. ‘I got away with murder that day – I’d missed an open goal.’
Giggs has not worked in management since he was in charge of Wales. The last game he oversaw was a 1-0 victory away in Bulgaria in 2020
Giggs, here with United first team coaches (from left) Paul Scholes, Phil Neville and Nicky Butt, was the team's interim manager in 2014 after the sacking of David Moyes
Among the chucklers was Ted Beckham, the fall-guy’s father, on Table 4. On contemporary matters, Giggs intimated he could play just about any position in this current United side and smiled along when it was suggested he would have been an upgrade in goal on Andre Onana.
William Prunier, a Frenchman given two games on trial across the pavement at Old Trafford in the Nineties, came off less well – Giggs named him as the worst player he saw at the club.
It was punchy and his crowd enjoyed it. They enjoyed Ferguson telling Barcelona to ‘f*** off’ even more.
Those days when Giggs was worthy of such a fiery brand of protection have never seemed so long ago.
