Gary Neville warns the European Super League idea ‘will make a comeback’

Gary Neville believes the European Super League isn’t dead and will come back in a ‘rehashed’ form because football’s elite care little for the game beyond their own interests.

Passionate fan opposition within the English game in April last year saw the six Premier League representatives perform a hasty U-turn after they’d signed up but the idea remains alive in European football.

Reports this week have suggested that Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus plan to formally relaunch the concept of a continental league imminently with various tweaks to last year’s original iteration.

That proposed a closed shop of 20 elite clubs playing each other with 15 founder members not vulnerable to relegation joined by five other clubs who qualified on merit each year.

The ESL was a direct rival to UEFA’s Champions League competition but the proposal was suspended following a backlash from the wider game and legal challenges.

Former England and Manchester United defender Neville believes we haven’t seen the end of the idea but hopes the recommendations of the fan-led review into football governance, led by Tracey Crouch MP, could neuter the threat if put into law.

Manchester United fans were among those who protested against the European Super League

‘It will make a comeback I don’t believe the hierarchy and elite in football that exists are going to go away,’ Neville said at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit.

‘They want more money, they want to create more wealth for themselves and they don’t have a great interest in the wider game beyond their own clubs.

‘Tracey Crouch, the Conservative MP, has done a fantastic fan led review that was part of the Tory manifesto at the last election, it is a great report and it now needs to move through legislation in parliament and if it does then I will finally believe the ESL is dead.

‘Until that point I don’t believe the ESL is dead, I believe it will come back rehashed, reworked and maybe with a cherry on it this time.

Angry fans stormed the pitch at Old Trafford and forced a game between Man United and Liverpool to be called off after the European Super League was launched last year

Chelsea fans took to the streets outside Stamford Bridge and forced the club to pull out

‘But the reality of it is I still don’t think it will be accepted because the fans don’t want it.’

Neville, a prominent television pundit, was fiercely opposed to the ESL idea, which featured English Premier League clubs Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United as founder members.

At the time, he said: ‘I’m disgusted with Manchester United and Liverpool the most. ‘They’re breaking away to a competition they can’t be relegated from? 

‘It’s an absolute disgrace. We have to wrestle back power in this country from the clubs at the top of this league – and that includes my club.

Neville was speaking at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit on Wednesday 

Conservative MP Tracey Crouch led a fan-led review into football governance which Neville hopes could fend off the prospect of a European Super League reprise

‘It’s pure greed, they’re impostors. The owners of Man United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City have nothing to do with football in this country. 

‘Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham aren’t even in the Champions League. Have they even got the right to be in there? They’re an absolute joke. 

‘Time has come now to have independent regulators to stop these clubs from having the power base. Enough is enough.’