‘I’M MOST DISGUSTED WITH MAN UTD AND LIVERPOOL- HIDEOUS’
GARY NEVILLE played more than 600 games for Manchester United and won all the top honours in a 19-year career. Yesterday, in disgust at what his former club, and others, are proposing to do, he poured his heart out on Sky Sports, making no attempt to mask his anger at plans for a European Super League.
“I’M a Manchester United fan and have been for 40 years of my life but I’m disgusted.
“I’m disgusted with Manchester United and Liverpool the most. Liverpool say they’re the people’s club, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, the fans’ club.
“Manchester United, 100 years, born from workers around here, and they’re breaking into a league without competition, that they can’t be relegated from?
“It’s an absolute disgrace and we have to wrestle back the power in this country from the clubs at the top of this league.
“That includes my club.
“I’ve been talking for 12 months as part of another group for an independent regulator to bring checks and balances into place to stop this happening. It’s pure greed.
“They’re imposters, the owners of these clubs. The owners of Liverpool, the owners of Manchester City, the owners of Chelsea – they have nothing to do with football in this country.
“There are 100-odd years of football in this country with fans that have lived and loved these clubs and they need protecting, the fans need protecting.
“I benefitted from football hugely, I’ve made money out of football, I invested money into a football club and I’m not against money in football. But (it’s about) the principles and ethos of fair competition and the rights to play the game, so Leicester win the league, they go into the Champions League.
“Manchester United aren’t even in the Champions League, neither are Arsenal. Tottenham aren’t in the Champions
League at the moment, and they want a God-given right to be in there?
“Deduct them all points tomorrow, put them at the bottom of the league and take the money off them. Seriously, you have to stamp on this.
“It’s a criminal act against football fans in this country. Deduct points, deduct the money and punish them.
“They’re bottle merchants. You never hear from the owners of these clubs. Absolute bottle merchants, they’ve got no voice. They’ll probably hide for a few weeks and then say it was nothing to do with them, they were only talking about it.
“Seriously, in the midst of a pandemic, an economic crisis, football clubs at National League level going bust nearly, furloughing players, and these lot are having Zoom calls about breaking away and basically creating more greed? Joke.
“Being a big club isn’t just about having a global fanbase, it’s acting properly at the right time.
“I’m not for everything standing still, but this is a grab at a time when the timing is hideous.
“What world are these people living in, to think they can bring this forward at this moment of time?
“They’ve got no loyalty to this country and these leagues. There isn’t a football fan in this country that won’t be seething.
“Give the title to Burnley, Fulham. Let Fulham stay up and relegate United, Liverpool and Arsenal.
“The history and tradition that runs through those three clubs is enormous but they leave a lot to be desired at this moment in time.
“Liverpool Football Club, seriously? I don’t have a great relationship with them at all, I don’t like them and they don’t like me, but the one thing I always thought about them was that they were honest.
“They had integrity, they’d look after their people, they’d look after their own. That’s gone, forget that. If they sign that letter of intent, they’re as bad as the rest of them.”