London 2012 Olympics: Ryan Giggs to captain Team GB football side

Ryan Giggs says the “massive honour” of leading out Great Britain’s Olympic football team as captain will be the crowning moment of his glittering career.

Rare: Ryan Giggs will lead out Team GB in a friendly against Brazil 

The Manchester United midfielder’s domestic record is unrivalled in modern times, but he has never appeared at a major international tournament with Wales, a point that still rankles.

“Being captain ranks very high in my career,” he said. “You are being involved in the Olympics and as a 38 year-old you don’t expect to be involved in a tournament like this on home turf.

“It has always been a disappointment never getting to a major tournament with Wales and that will always remain. It has always been a massive disappointment in my career.

“I have not played in tournament football and I am getting a chance and I am thankful for that and really looking forward to it.”

He said he hoped to bring his “winning mentality” to the side, who face their first match against Senegal on July 26, before the official opening ceremony.

Pearce said the appointment was “one of the easiest of my life”. He is also “pretty confident” Daniel Sturridge, who was diagnosed with viral meningitis last week, will recover in time for the Games.

The Chelsea forward was taken for tests at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington after notifying Stamford Bridge doctors he was feeling unwell. He will not join the Team GB squad for their preparation in Spain but doctors will assess his condition when the rest of the side move into the athletes’ village.

Sir Alex Ferguson accuses Paul Pogba of showing no respect to Manchester United as he leaves for Juventus

Paul Pogba has completed a move to Juventus with Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson insisting he was relieved to see the back of the Frenchman.

On the move: Paul Pogba has joined Italian side Juventus 

Pogba fell out with Manchester United during new contract talks last season and refused to sign a new deal, deciding to move to Italy rather than continue his education at Old Trafford.

That move was finalised on Tuesday and Ferguson could not resist firing a parting shot at the midfielder who claimed he had become frustrated by a lack of first-team opportunities under him.

“Pogba signed for Juventus a long time ago as far as we’re aware,” Ferguson told MUTV. “It’s a bit disappointing because I don’t think he showed us any respect at all. To be honest, if they carry on that way, I’m quite happy that he’s away, from me, anyway.”

Despite Ferguson’s displeasure at the way Pogba and his advisers acted, his departure is a blow for the Scot, who had expected him to go on to become a key member of the first team squad for years.

The 19 year-old made his first-team debut as a substitute against Stoke in January and Ferguson had hoped his greater involvement in the senior side would persuade him to stay at the club, although he leaves having made a total of just seven appearances.

The former Le Havre prospect, who only moved to England in 2009, has signed a deal that will earn him around £20,000-a-week at Juventus.

Pogba is the second highly-rated young player to leave the club this year after the prodigiously talented but controversial Ravel Morrison was allowed to join West Ham in January.

The future of a third, Ezekiel Fryers, is unclear.

He has also been offered a new contract but has yet to inform United of his decision.

"We haven't heard anything from Zeki Fryers," added Ferguson.

"I don't know what's happening there but he's not been in touch with the club. His agent hasn't been in touch with the club and I can only assume he'll be back for training."

Manchester United's $100 million flotation may reduce Glazer debt slightly - but it won't boost transfer kitty

Page one of Manchester United’s $100 million prospectus confronts potential investors with a stark warning. "Investing in our Class A ordinary shares involves a high degree of risk," it reads.

Money matters: A proposed $1 billion float in Singapore was pulled 

Further down it goes on to say: "These challenges and risks include, among other things, competition for key players and other personnel, increases in operating costs, such as player salaries and transfer costs, and our ability to manage our growth efficiently.

"For example, net of profit on disposal of players' registrations, we realised a loss from continuing operations in two out of the last three fiscal years... although we are currently profitable and growing… there can be no assurance that we will continue to be profitable or grow our profitability at the same rate in the future or at all."

Football fans know there is no guarantee of success in any season, but their stake is principally an emotional one. For the hard-nosed speculators who want security of income and investment those warnings will bring to mind Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous phrase: "Football, eh? Bloody hell."

What United have asked investors to do today, at a time of fevered uncertainty for all markets, is to plunge their cash into an industry - with its reliance on consumer spending and the additional threat of dropping out of the Champions or Premier League - that risks being more volatile than almost any other.

There are signs that the club's advisers are highly confident of a positive response from the markets. A basket of banks have underwritten the $100 million offering, meaning that if investors are not sufficiently excited to take up all the shares then they will be on the hook for every one that goes unsold.

The sale of shares - through the New York Stock Exchange favoured of the club's American owners rather than the more obvious choice of London - will therefore effectively guarantee United $100 million in fresh money. This will be used to reduce the club's debts.

Against those £423.28 million ($662.8 million) debts, mostly related to the Glazer family's 2005 takeover of the club, the amount United are seeking to raise is modest. Perhaps this reflects how the banks might have got cold feet the last time a share issue was considered. A proposed $1 billion float in Singapore was pulled amid "market turmoil".

In return for the cash, the Glazers will be handing over a proportion of their ownership stake, but they will not cede control. Under the resulting share structure the "B" shares the Glazers will hold will carry 10 times the voting rights over the "A" shares that are being sold to the market, and will never have less than 67 per cent control over shareholder meetings.

Indeed, although United will become a leaner business, paying off up to 15 per cent of their outstanding debt, the new ownership format will not make a transformative difference to the club in anything but its ability to pay down debt.

Currently, United are paying about £46.5 million a year in net interest; my rough calculations suggest the share issue will reduce that bill by up to £7 million a year in the future, although it may not even be that much.

United have already conducted what they call an "aggressive deleveraging" programme which, between July 2010 and July 2011, brought down their debts by almost £225 million. Freeing up more cash to repay debts will reduce how much interest has to be paid in future as well, providing a compound benefit that will be familiar to anyone who has overpaid their mortgage.

But, in the same way as it is unlikely to improve United’s transfer-market muscle, it is difficult to see what benefit there is to the investors in the shorter term. As United note, the debts they already hold place certain obligations on the club: "The indenture governing our senior secured [loan] notes and our revolving credit facility limit our ability, among other things, to: pay dividends or make other distributions or repurchase or redeem our shares."

If anyone had any doubt about what that means, United’s prospectus spells it out later: "We do not currently intend to pay cash dividends on our Class A ordinary shares in the foreseeable future."

There is lot of fluffy stuff in the prospectus about how United have 659 million "followers", a figure extrapolated from an internet survey of 53,287 respondents that was paid for by United. The club's Facebook popularity is also stressed, comparing their 26 million "connections" with New York Yankees' 5.8 million.

Certainly there is no disputing their introductory claim: "We are one of the most popular and successful sports teams in the world, playing one of the most popular spectator sports on Earth."

United should be applauded for using that brand to try and reduce their biggest business risk - the debt that hampers their ability to function as a normal dividend-paying business. But when they have been told so often how sustainable that debt is, perhaps fans should also consider why the Glazers have chosen to do so now.