Sky’s £15m offer can’t keep Neville

GARY Neville turned down a new five-year contract with Sky Sports as their main football pundit before leaving the Tv network with immediate effect to take up his head coach role with valencia.

Neville made a massive impact during his time at isleworth, becoming such a fine analyst that Sky were prepared to offer him a long-term deal believed to be worth more than £15million.

However, Neville has kept all his future options open — including the possibility of replacing Roy Hodgson as england manager after euro 2016 — by only agreeing a five-month contract with valencia, and Sky say the door will always be open for him.

There will be no like-for-like replacement for Neville on the Sky team, with a packed roster of pundits filling in when required, although a mix of Alan Smith, Niall Quinn and Davie Provan in Neville’s co-commentary role is a considerable backward step.

Meanwhile, Frank lampard, who recently made a big impression as a guest pundit, is at the front of the queue when Sky want a major signing, although he has Major league Soccer commitments with New York City for the next two years.

Neville’s first match in charge of valencia is next week’s Champions league game against lyon, to be broadcast by Sky’s arch rivals BT.

WATFORD, who want to be known as a London club, showed plenty of top-flight class in staging their Christmas drinks for the media in a stylish Soho venue in keeping with their suave Spanish manager Quique Sanchez Flores (right). He has to deal with 22 different nationalities at Watford but says the most difficult accent to understand is Brummie. THE RFU say they cannot comment on the sacking of Dave Tennison as england kit manager for gross misconduct because the disciplinary process is ongoing.

Tennison’s appeal is due to be heard next week, but there must be more to this bizarre case than his share tips to the squad not working out. Otherwise, even by RFU standards, this looks a miscarriage of justice.

Surely it was up to the players whether they invested thousands of pounds in lGO energy on the advice of the kit man.

THE FIFA corruption crisis has led to a whopping forecasted £67million deficit for 2015 at the world governing body. This first annual loss since 2001 comes after the departures of five major sponsors in Emirates, Sony, Johnson & Johnson, Continental and Castrol, with none of them replaced. There were also enormous legal fees paid out to a team of American lawyers who arrived in Zurich to help keep FIFA afloat. However, FIFA still have around £1billion in the bank.