Former British prime minister Tony Blair has paid tribute to Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

Blair believes makes Ferguson the ideal man to have in the trenches.

"He is one of these people that has a strength of character that immediately marks him out as a leader of people," said Blair.

"He's a great competitor but he's also got huge integrity, to himself and to what he believes in.

"That's quite unusual in life to find people like that and when you find them they're very special.

"If you're in a tough situation and everything is coming down on top of you and you feel you're slowly getting surrounded by the people that want to put you in a deep dark pit, Alex is the type of person you'd want standing alongside you because you'd know you were [then able] to give whoever came after you a good fight."