Gary Neville has slammed the Premier League after Everton were docked ten points for Financial Fair Play (FFP) breaches and questioned whether Manchester United or Manchester City would have received the same treatment.
Last Friday, the top flight found the Toffees guilty of making a loss of over £300m during a three-year period between 2019 and 2022. This was far higher than the permitted £105m loss which clubs are permitted to make.
Sean Dyche's side are appealing the ruling but in the meantime, they have been deducted the points and now sit in the relegation zone. Discussing the Merseyside club's current predicament, an impassioned Neville took aim at the Premier League in defence of Everton.
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He told Sky Bet Stick to Football podcast: "Everton’s trust and faith [in the Premier League] has gone completely. The greed and selfishness is out of control - it’s lawless.
"The Premier League is a defunct organisation because they’ve got 20 clubs all voting with self-interest. This has been coming for many years.
"The Super League clubs tried to destroy the whole of European football - they were fined a total of £22 million, £3.5 million for each team, which is an absolute disgrace and a scandal for what they attempted to do, which was the attempted murder of our game."
Alongside United and City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur were all part of the original plan to join the European Super League before pulling out due to fan backlash. Neville believes now is the right time for the government to intervene with how the Premier League runs their division.
He added: "What you’d hope for at some point in the future is that good leadership will return to this country, generally, not just in football but in Parliament as well. That we’ll have a good government who can bring back some sort of law and order, empathy, and a social approach.
"This doesn’t mean that we can’t have an unbelievable Premier League, it just means that this type of maneuvering that we're watching, financial maneuvering, power shifts, and political games that we see – what’s going on in the game is dangerous. They can’t do it, they can’t even control their own, let alone trying to create a multi-club international strategy.
"That’s never going to happen, they’re not capable of these types of things. The people in the Premier League haven’t got the skillset to be able to deliver this type of operation, we just need to get back to basics. Real time financial monitoring of football clubs, create what football clubs can lose each year, what they can put in owner funding and monitor it on a very strict basis.
"Equalise the rules across the four leagues and make the consequences of not doing so consistent so everyone knows exactly what the damages are if you are found guilty. In this moment in time, it’s make it up as you go along.
"The Premier League is broken in terms of governance; it was broken many years ago and how they didn’t stamp down after the European Super League was unbelievable. I’d be furious if I was an Everton fan, I’d feel like it’s an absolute disgrace what you’ve done to my club, but on the other hand, Everton have done wrong themselves, and have committed a financial crime within the game, so they should be punished.
"What they’re now being is the scapegoat for the tougher new Premier League, which to be honest doesn’t exist because it’s the big six – they’re bullies. Would they have really done this to a Manchester United or Manchester City?"
