He was elected to the Manchester United board in March 1970. He became chairman in March 1980 on death of his 65-year-old father Louis, the previous chairman. When the Football Association voted to allow football clubs to have one paid director, he became Chief Executive and paid himself an annual salary of £30,000.

During the season when Edwards took over as chairman, United finished runners-up to Liverpool in the Football League First Division, but had not won the league title since 1967 and had not won a major trophy at all in three seasons of Dave Sexton's management. At the end of the 1980-81 season, United finished eighth in the league after seven successive wins at the end of the season. Manager Dave Sexton was looking set to be offered a new three-year contract, but the deal was never signed and Edwards sacked Sexton after four trophyless seasons as manager.
Edwards then began the hunt for a new manager. There was talk that he would appoint Lawrie McMenemy, who had guided Southampton to a shock win over United in the FA Cup final five years earlier, as successor to Dave Sexton. It was also rumoured that United were interested in recruiting Brian Clough, once a league champion and twice a European Cup winner with Nottingham Forest, but Edwards insisted that he would not be approaching Clough about the job vacancy. He instead turned to Ron Atkinson, whose impressive West Bromwich Albion side had qualified for the UEFA Cup three times in four seasons with top-five league finishes, reaching the quarter-finals on one occasion. Atkinson accepted the offer, and soon after this appointment, Edwards made the funds available for Atkinson to bring in Albion's midfielder Bryan Robson for a national record fee of £1.5million. This national record would remain unbroken by English clubs for six years, and Robson went on to be one of the club's greatest ever players.

Edwards enabled United to break the national transfer record twice in 2001 when they signed Dutch striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Argentine midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron, but he was forced to resign as Chairman in 2002, after allegations of using a prostitute on an official club business trip to Switzerland. Despite this, he continued to represent the club at FA and UEFA meetings.

He still remains at Old Trafford as honorary life president and sits on the club's football board alongside Sir Bobby Charlton. He sold his 6.7% share in the club to new investor Harry Dobson in 2003.


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