In half a century of frontline involvement in football, Sir Alex Ferguson has grown accustomed to change. The sport is almost unrecognisable from the one in which he took his first steps as a 16-year-old playing for Queen's Park away to Stranraer on November 15, 1958, but, while he often remarks that the game has unquestionably been transformed for the better - better stadiums, better equipment, better players, more money - the FA's new rules on drugs testing are not one of his favourite innovations.

The Manchester United manager appeared bewildered yesterday by the new rules that require clubs to inform the FA of their players' whereabouts for an hour of every day so that random doping tests can be carried out even when they are away from the training ground. It was certainly not like that in 1958, when drugs, let alone stringent drug-testing regulations, were almost unheard of, but Ferguson and United will have to accept and embrace the changes, just as he has had to adapt to any number of other modifications to a sport that is never content to stand still.

“I must say that it has become a real nuisance to us,” Ferguson said of the changes introduced by the FA six weeks ago, which, as The Times revealed on Wednesday, have already caught out some leading footballers. “If you give a player a day off, you have to notify the FA where he is for one hour that day. If, for instance, maybe we will give them a Sunday, we have to give the FA all the details of where all the players are going to be that day. You know what young people are like. They might say, ‘Do you fancy going to the shops?' They might forget. And I'm telling you, it's going to cost the FA an absolute fortune. Yes we need to drive out any signs of drugs in the game, but the implementation of this is going to cost an absolute fortune.

“I think they're trying to use the same system as they have in athletics. But it's very difficult and it makes us really conscious about how we can give our players days off. For example, if they have two or three days off, players such as [Cristiano] Ronaldo or Nani might want to go back to Portugal.”

Logistics aside, it is difficult to quibble with the FA's stated desire to be “at the forefront of the fight against doping” and, notwithstanding Rio Ferdinand's infamous indiscretion in September 2003, when he forgot to attend a doping test and was banned from football for eight months, it does not seem a lot to ask of footballers to adhere to something approaching the stringent demands of the code of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which England players will be obliged to follow from July. The counter-argument is that, compared with other sports, not least athletics and cycling, football does not have a drugs problem.

There was another FA initiative, laudable on the face of it, that Ferguson took issue with yesterday: the campaign demanding respect for referees and match officials. Ferguson has been among the victims of the recent clampdown, having been charged with improper conduct for a confrontation with Mike Dean, who refereed United's recent 4-3 victory over Hull City, but he says that, more than eight years after the leading English referees went professional, he and his fellow managers are entitled to expect a higher standard of performance.

“I think the best way [to ensure that match officials are shown respect] is to make sure that the training of referees is 100 per cent,” Ferguson said. “It's not just about fitness. We expect them to be fit. They're full-time now. You expect that. What we want is to see them improve their decision-making. That's fair to ask and fair to expect.

“When Cristiano Ronaldo joined us as an 18-year-old, we had a job to do in terms of his decision-making. People would call him a one-trick pony and things like that. Look at him now. His decision-making is fantastic. Training is so important. That's why you have apprenticeships in training and in other industries. Referees have to do the same. They have to make decisions quickly and accurately.”

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Sir Alex Ferguson has cast doubt on Manchester United’s willingness to shatter their wage structure to satisfy Cristiano Ronaldo after the player’s management company said that he should be offered a new contract “that matches his status and performances”.

“Cristiano is very well paid by us and rightly so,” the manager said of a player who earns £120,000 a week. “He has 3½ years left on his contract and we are happy with that.”