Gary Neville hits out at Premier League after threat of booting Man Utd out of Europe

Manchester United icon Gary Neville has lambasted the Premier League, accusing them of behaving like bullies in light of the potential establishment of an independent football regulator. The Football Governance Bill, which encompasses the creation of an independent regulator, was put forward by the Conservatives in March and Labour are advancing it.

The call for an independent regulator in English football gained traction following the Super League fiasco. The government have stated that it will ‘protect football clubs’ by ‘ensuring their financial sustainability’, and the bill, assuming it is approved by parliament, will grant a regulator emergency powers to step in when necessary.

Neville has been a vocal advocate for an independent regulator, and it’s believed its implementation would safeguard the interests of English football fans at all levels. The Premier League has shown resistance to the introduction of an independent regulator, but the organisation’s CEO Richard Masters has cautioned that its formation would pose a ‘risk’.

Neville has now launched a scathing attack on the Premier League, accusing them of acting entitled and selfish at a Labour conference this Monday. Speaking to PA, Neville unleashed: “We have a Premier League that’s entitled, they feel entitled. I’m not going to use the word greedy, but I just have.

“They are selfish and I can’t understand that way of thinking. It’s almost like they’re the big brother that sit there and distribute scraps of food to the little brothers round the table.

“It’s not what you do when you’re in a family. Their mindset is such of a bully. Their mindset is such that they think they can influence the regulator once the regulator is introduced and they can get a better deal potentially the other side of the regulator. And what they’re applying is their soft power and their influence to try and create scare stories and scaremongering, like we had a couple of weeks ago.”

There has been a suggestion that English teams could be barred from European competition if the new regulator is brought in, as a result UEFA rules against state involvement in football governance, but Labour have dismissed those concerns.

At the same conference, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lisa Nandy dismissed fears of English teams being banned from European competitions as ‘ridiculous’, slamming the idea as ‘really disrespectful to fans because it caused a lot of alarm which was really unnecessary’.

Nandy reassured that the government would not adopt a ‘heavy-handed’ approach and emphasised their desire to address the unsustainable aspects of the football pyramid.

In a sharp rebuke, the Premier League has waved off Neville’s accusations of them acting as a ‘bully’, pointing out ongoing discussions with the government on the topic of football regulation.

The Premier League also noted that carefully crafted ‘light-touch, targeted and proportionate legislation’ could indeed be effective, invoking CEO Masters’s remarks from the previous season.

Premier League CEO, Masters, voiced his concerns, asserting, “My overriding concern is that the bill will reduce our competitiveness and weaken the incredible appeal of the English game,”.

Highlighting the league’s success, Masters said: “Our competition is the most watched and commercially successful football league in the world. Thanks to that success, Premier League clubs are able to give away £1.6 billion every three years 16 per cent of our total revenues – to the wider game, helping to make it the envy of the world.

“It is a risk that regulation will undermine the Premier League’s global success, thereby wounding the goose that provides English football’s golden egg. It is a risk to regulate an industry that has worked so hard to lead the world, especially when none of its competitors are subject to the same regulation.

“Those competitors are relishing the prospect of the Premier League being uniquely constrained. Empires rise and fall and while I am confident about the League’s immediate future, it would be a mistake to be complacent about our place as the world’s most popular league.

“It is a risk to introduce uncertainty and red tape into an industry that relies heavily on a relatively small pool of investors, who often see club ownership as a passion project as well as a business.

“While the sport is buoyant today, it would be so easy to misstep and drive our world-leading investment elsewhere. Already, before it has even arrived, the promise of regulatory intervention in football finances has changed incentives for a new voluntary arrangement to be struck.

“We have spent the last year in discussions with the EFL about an even more generous financial settlement. But these talks have only served to highlight how destabilising intervention could be.

“The government claims its regulator will not interfere on the pitch, but by intervening in the carefully calibrated distribution of revenues and upsetting competitive balance, it is already doing exactly that.”