Everton and U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard says in his new autobiography that compatriot and fellow No. 1 Brad Friedel "actively tried to block" his 2003 move from Major League Soccer to Manchester United, a claim Friedel said was not true on Wednesday.

"Man U told us that Friedel had refused to submit a statement on my behalf," Howard says about his move to the Premier League in his book, "The Keeper," due out on Tuesday and excerpted exclusively on ESPNFC.com.

Howard writes: "'You're kidding me,' I said. Friedel was among what was then a handful of American players in the Premier League; his influence was huge. Having himself been denied several times, he understood better than anyone exactly what was at stake. Why wouldn't he vouch for me?

"I mean, who would sabotage his own countryman like that?"

It was the middle of the 2003 Major League Soccer season, and United paid a $4 million transfer fee to MLS, where Howard played with the MetroStars (now the New York Red Bulls), so he could take over from Fabien Barthez as the club's first-choice goalkeeper.

In his new book, Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard blasts Brad Friedel for the fellow American shot-stopper's refusal to help him break into the Premier League in 2003. Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Images

Howard, the 2014 U.S. Soccer Male Athlete of the Year who first represented his country in 2002, helped United win the 2003-04 FA Cup before being loaned out to Everton and eventually signing with the club in 2007.

He wrote in his book that he later learned from the legal team at United that Friedel -- then playing in the Premier League for Blackburn Rovers -- "hadn't merely refused to sign a statement on my behalf, he had actively tried to block my transfer. He'd written to the appeals committee suggesting that I shouldn't be given a work permit at all."

Friedel, however, told ESPN FC's Doug McIntyre on Wednesday that he never "wrote a letter of negativity toward Tim Howard to anybody in this world."