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Sir Alex Ferguson auctioning off wine collection worth millions

Christie's employees pose with a six litre imperiale "Sassicaia 2005" wine, signed by retired Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson. (Reuters)

Sir Alex Ferguson was known to have a glass of red wine with opposing managers after a match, but now that he's retired, he decided to sell off his large and valuable collection at auction. Perhaps he feels 5,000 bottles of wine are too many for a Harvard teacher.

From Reuters:

The collection of about 5,000 bottles assembled by one of soccer's most successful managers will be sold along with memorabilia signed by Ferguson and has a pre-sale estimated value of 3 million pounds ($5 million), the auction house said.

The cellar consists almost 75 percent of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, a French Burgundy which Christie's International Director of Wine David Elswood said "is probably the wine in vogue, the wine of the moment in terms of demand."

Since the types of wines in Ferguson's collection are popular in Asia right now, the auctions are starting in Hong Kong next month. A portion will also be sold in London in June and the remainder will be sold over the internet.

"Taking an interest in wine allowed me to have an interest outside the game. You have to have outside interests to distract you from the intensity and the pressure you come under as a football manager.

"And all of a sudden, two or three years ago, when I’m going through the portfolio, we realise this has got to be an amazing amount of wine. I retired last year, and I thought this was a good time to, to sell it," Ferguson added.

It seems very likely that Arsene Wenger will buy all of it just so he can smash every last bottle.

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Brooks Peck

is the editor of Dirty Tackle on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him or follow on Twitter!