They are two subjects that would be high up on any list of likely targets in Sir Alex Ferguson's autobiography and he does not disappoint with the former Manchester United manager reserving some of his most barbed criticism for the Football Association and referees.

Ferguson had many run-ins with the FA his 27-year tenure at Old Trafford and his parting shot is to claim that its disciplinary unit tended to go after high-profile targets because it resulted in favourable publicity.

In particular, he singles out the incident when Wayne Rooney was handed a three-match ban for swearing into the television cameras at Upton Park. He is also scathing about the mentality and structure of the FA.

"It was never really possible to work out who was running English football's governing body. You would get Exeter schools having a say," he writes, witheringly. "It's an institutional problem. Reformers go in there six feet two inches tall and come out five feet four inches."

He says the new chairman, Greg Dyke, has to reduce the number of people involved in making decisions. "A committee of 100 people can't produce sensible management".

Elsewhere, he says it is an "indictment" on England teams at youth level that so many fall back on "outdated" long-ball tactics. "Because they don't have enough technical ability and coaching the years from nine to 16 are thrown away."

Ferguson also declares that there are no "really top" referees in the modern game, damning them as unfit and "as a group, aren't doing their job as well as they should be".

Claiming that the behaviour of his players in big games was "generally excellent", he outlines his disappointment with the current crop of Premier League referees. "By the end, I felt we hadn't had a really top Premier League referee for a long time."

Ferguson said the experiment with making referees full time has been a failure and argues they should be made to move close to the FA's central hub at St George's Park.