One of football's most respected voices gave a brutal, blistering 3-minute takedown of plans to form a European Super League
Gary Neville, one of football's most-respected commentators, gave a brutal, blistering takedown of plans to form a European Super League, calling the teams involved a "disgrace."
On Sunday, 12 of Europe's biggest soccer clubs announced plans to join a new breakaway Super League to rival the Champions League.
Six Premier League clubs – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham – have agreed to join, alongside FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Inter Milan, and Juventus.
Funded by Wall Street bank JP Morgan, the league would have no promotion or relegation, and would see the clubs involved earn billions.
The plans have already been met with huge backlash from the footballing world, including from UEFA, which threatened to expel the teams involved from their domestic leagues and ban players from competing for their countries.
Speaking on Sky Sports ahead of Manchester United's win over Burnley on Sunday, just prior to the official announcement, Neville, a former United player, accused those involved of betraying the history of soccer.
"The reaction to it is that it has been damned and rightly so," he said at the start of a three-minute monologue. "I'm a Manchester United fan and have been for 40 years of my life but I'm disgusted, absolutely disgusted.
"I'm disgusted with Manchester United and Liverpool the most. Liverpool, they pretend, 'You'll Never Walk Alone, the people's club, the fans' club.'
"Manchester United, 100 years, borne out of workers from around here, and they're breaking away into a league without competition that they can't be relegated from? It's an absolute disgrace."
"It's pure greed. They're imposters," Neville added.
"The time has come now to get an independent regulator and stop these clubs having the powerbase. Enough is enough."
This lot think they can sweep up £300m more each season than the other teams and then wander back on a Saturday and play with that advantage in the PL . Deduct points , fine heavily and embargo transfers. I hope they haven’t bought some of the other 14 clubs. #stopthesuperleague
— Gary Neville (@GNev2) April 19, 2021
Neville went on to suggest that the English clubs involved in the plans should be handed massive fines and even relegated from the Premier League.
"They should be punished heavily," he said. "Massive fines, points deductions, take their titles off them, who cares. Give the title to Burnley, Fulham.
"Let Fulham stay up and relegate United, Liverpool, and Arsenal. Them three clubs to be fair are the history of this country, they should be the ones that suffer most."
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