Barcelona defender and former Manchester United player Gerard Pique has claimed that United players are allowed to eat what they want, and that some players are overweight. The 21-year-old was stunned when he learnt the diet at Old Trafford and even claims some of the players cannot understand Sir Alex Ferguson's Scottish accent.

He told Sport: "At United there were some incredible things happening. Everyone was allowed to eat what they wanted and one must remember that the English diet is just like people say.

"Every two weeks we had to be checked out on a machine that measured the amount of fat we had in our bodies.

"It would be a surprise that none of the players broke the machine because of the amount of hamburgers and beer they had.

"The gaffer, as Ferguson is known in Manchester, spoke in English with a Scottish accent but it sounded like Chinese to me.

"But I was not the worst and there are players still there who do not understand him yet."