Eintracht Frankfurt has granted Sir Alex Ferguson lifetime membership in an unusual move.

A delegation from the Bundesliga paid the iconic former Manchester United boss, 82, a visit after they traveled to Aberdeen to face the Scottish team in the Europa Conference League.

He also received a Frankfurt shirt with his name and No. 10 on the back.

Ferguson has tenuous ties to Frankfurt from his career as a player and manager in Scotland.

His debut game for Rangers, which he joined from Dunfermline, was a pre-season friendly against the Germans in 1967, which they won 5-3 with him scoring a hat-trick.

Ferguson had witnessed a European Cup game between Rangers and Frankfurt seven years before, in 1960. The Scot was at Ibrox for the second leg, which saw the Germans triumph 6-3 to secure a 12-4 aggregate victory.

He then faced Frankfurt as a manager with Aberdeen in the UEFA Cup in 1979, with the Scottish team losing 2-1 on aggregate after a 1-0 defeat in the second leg in Germany, and Ferguson said that the experience taught him an important lesson.

‘Frankfurt were the better team, but we saved the game with an equaliser,’ Ferguson remarked in an interview after receiving his lifetime membership.

‘We had the opportunity to travel to Frankfurt, but we lost 1-0. Bernd Holzenbein scored the goal in the second game that eliminated us from the competition.

I learned an essential lesson while we played abroad. Some players left after the game. Following that, I made certain that something like that never happened again.

Ferguson departed from football in 2013, having led United to unprecedented success, winning 38 major trophies.

He is still a regular at United games and was sighted at Cheltenham last week, where 25-1 shot Monmiral became his first victory at the famous horse racing festival.