Gary Neville Compares Premier League to 'Bully' in Football Pyramid Funding Discussions

Gary Neville, a well-known football personality, is regarded as one of the sport's greatest icons. Manchester United's history has clear traces of his legendary status. Easily moving into punditry after retirement, Neville keeps surprising with his astute footballing analysis and professional comments.

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Gary Neville has called the Premier League a ‘bully’ of the football pyramid 

Gary Neville has attacked the Premier League for acting as a "bully" in its discussions for more funding for the wider football pyramid. Since March, talks on a new broadcast agreement between the Premier League and the EFL have stagnated without any sign of revival shortly.

As culture minister Lisa Nandy said on Monday that laws establishing the regulator will be tabled to parliament in the next weeks, an independent regulator for football is anticipated to acquire "backstop" powers to address this disagreement.

With this arrangement in place until a new deal is signed, the Premier League has promised to pay £1.6 billion in solidarity payments to help the broader football community during the three years up to the conclusion of the current season. But Neville, a former Manchester United player who co-owns Salford City, contends that the Premier League should do much more to guarantee the viability of teams outside of its purview. As quoted in the Guardian, Gary Neville said: 
 

“I have no idea what they’re playing at – they look awful to me,” he said at the Labour party conference in Liverpool. “They look selfish. They look greedy. Everything you wouldn’t want to be in life, everything your parents wouldn’t want you to be.

“We’re happy to accept conditions around the money coming down, because the reality is, we want a sustainable game. I’m an owner of a football club, I want my club to be sustainable.

“[Football] is not sustainable, and we have a Premier League that are entitled. They feel entitled. They’re the big brother that sit there and distribute scraps of food to the little brothers around the table. It’s not what you do when you’re in a family.

“I know exactly what they’re doing – if they had wanted to have done a deal, they would have done a deal. But their mindset is such of a bully, their mindset is that they can influence a regulator once a regulator is introduced and get a better deal potentially the other side of the regulator coming in.”

Although the Premier League elected not to comment on the matter, According to the Guardian, the league insiders have refuted Neville's allegations of bullying. The Premier League is actively interacting with the incoming administration over the football regulator and believes that a light-touch, focused, reasonable approach to regulation may be successful.