Gary Neville
- Thread starter jymufc20
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Thought this was a pretty good response from Neville in light of the criticism he and others have received:
Whataboutism at its best… 
It's whataboutism from Neville. MPs take money and don't go to the world cup? That doesn't take away from you taking their money to cover the world cup, Gary.
Conveniently ignoring how they won the tournament there. Lies and corruption. That's the real problem, a tournament that was won under false pretences and with vast sums of dirty money changing hands. A tournament which has a massive climate footprint and at the end of it most of the stadiums are going to have to be demolished.
He's not wrong that it's hypocritical that we allow them to own vast amounts of property in the UK, equity in important companies, we use their oil and gas resources and say nothing about their human rights and climate record etc though. I'm sure he's right that the middle east / Arab countries overall deserved to get a world cup, but I'm not sure the solution is to let them win one through corruption. We should have been encouraging a bid from a less appalling country/FA if the world needed a tournament in that part of the world.
I gotta say, I love this whole "It's better to come down here and try and influence things" logic he keeps spewing. What exactly is he doing? Is he out their campaigning for LGBTQ rights between games, or trying to influence labor law for migrant workers? I really doubt it. It's just the ultimate dodge.
Neville is there because it's lucrative for him. Simple as that.
The argument that "oh you buy petrol/clothes" makes me laugh, like there's a viable affordable alternative for the working man.
Well anyone watching the games can’t really criticise him. They can’t even bring themselves to make a mini stand by not watching the games. Sending the only message within their own very limited power. The damage was already done once they got the World Cup. It’s irrelevant who commentates. People will still tune in. It’s irrelevant where the World Cup
Is. People are still tuning in. Everyone in here would take x as well. Like the position of any football man would change a countries laws/beliefs!
The guy really is as thick as pig shit.
How do you know everyone would take x amount of money?
The fact Neville already has millions and portrays himself on the moral high ground on everything and is even a labour member stinks rotten that he’s taking money from his ‘relationships’ seems he holds these ‘relationships’ above any moral integrity he so often tells us he has, he’s a hypocrite.
Nah this is absolute bollocks. This is a classic case of trying to sound thoughtful and observant, but the minute you actually dig in to the substance of what he is saying it's all pretty awful.
He's basically doubling down on Qatar hosting being a good thing to "grow the game" in the middle east. He acknowledges the human rights abuses, but fails to acknowledge that FIFA are literally silencing any form of protest over even the most meek of gestures aimed at showing solidarity with LGBT people.
The one thing he is right about is that the burden does always appear to fall on footballers when this sort of controversy emerges whilst politicians are totally invisible, but this is another story about how shamelessly corrupt FIFA is as an organisation, and the tournament should have never ever been held here.
Nonsense. One person out of millions not watching the game is not going to do anything, it's not a mini stand, it couldn't even be measured as a planck-sized stand.
The difference in morality breaches between the average joe watching and a very popular and well known figure head taking their money to cover the games is huge.
Well you’re just plain wrong now.
Your disbelief that already rich men sold out…one of us is wrong. I’d say for a start 100% of United fans would sell out right now for what let’s say max 5bn..the price of this club. You are plain wrong as every one has a price. Particularly on a subject going on at the other end of the world where their decision to go/not go is completely irrelevant, as there are hundreds in line behind them with hands out stretched.
He fits in well with the current Labour party leadership. Superficially express concern about the plight of others and hope things will fix themselves.
Saying that, he's probably gone out of bounds by expressing any concern, even superficially.
Well said. Tbh I’m sure the Labour Party released a press letter saying they will boycott the World Cup but not for England games.
Yeah Neville would make a perfect MP for the current party.
Yep - good response to the complete nonsense criticism he has received, he's certainly done more to improve human rights in Qatar than anyone who stayed at home 'boycotting'
I remember a few weeks ago when everyone said there was no way he would mention anything about human rights etc while doing commentary - quite clearly they were completely wrong
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Very much this. The amount of times I've been called a hypocrite for buying petrol for my car. Like there's much of another option
Pretty sure he's wrong on the energy part. The UK gets around 80% of it's gas imports from Norway. The rest coming from the US, Qatar and until recently Russia. Similar with Oil, most of it comes form Norway and the US, the UK imports more Oil from the likes of Italy, Canada and Nigeria than it does the middle east.
I agree with him 100%. My opinion on the WC has changed to be fair. The amount of hypocrisy is ridiculous.
Haven't pretty much all World Cups in recent times been won in similar fashion? Maybe not to the extend of Qatar, but corruption is rife through all walks of sports and politics. If the UK had won the World Cup, you can bet it would have involved some form of bribery and corruption. It's all just so mind-numbing at this point it's hard to care.
The terrible working conditions/poor human rights etc is a much bigger issue in my opinion
Well you shouldn't be bloody numb to it. This bid was even more corrupt than the Russian one, to the point where they even had to make a bunch of stupid promises on the record that they couldn't hope to meet about how they could stage it in summer and how they'd be ok with LGBT flags and whatnot that have clearly been proven to be complete bollocks and nobody is held accountable for that. FIFA might as well be rogering your metaphorical mother from behind while flicking the Vs at you at this point. And here's Gary saying it's all alright because they donate to his political party and invest in his hotels. I'm gonna say it, he's a bellend. He may well be less of a bellend than most of our politicians and business leaders but that doesn't make it ok. A bellend he remains.
I mean you've just said it "even more corrupt"... corruption is corruption. All these bids, FIFA and Football as a whole, it's all so corrupt, that one being more corrupt then the other barely registers for me.
I mean we live in a country where we a nation literally voted to leave the EU based on our own politicians being able to freely lie with zero consequences. We have a government that give contracts to their mates so they can get rich instead of whatever's best for the national interest. It's whataboutism sure, but that shit is going on closer to home and actually impacts the lives of people over here, that a bunch of Qatari's promising a summer tournament and then switching to a winter one hardly seems a big deal... especially when this country is actually treating migrant works like shite, which as I said, is a far bigger deal.
Agree with this.
We treat migrant workers like shit. Britain is a hive of modern slavery, you just haven't noticed. It doesn't have any bearing on whether Gary Neville is being a bellend or not, Qatar is a disgrace, the UK is a disgrace. Neither of those things makes the other ok.
Prince William not showing up as a form of protest is a bit of a joke. Don't the Middle East own most of their shit now?
Yeah can't everyone involved be an arsehole? It's not like pointing out that someone else is also an arsehole makes you any less of an arsehole?
As for people changing their mind.. isn't that what Sports Washing is supposed to achieve? It wouldn't be a tactic if it didn't work.
Yeah can't everyone involved be an arsehole? It's not like pointing out that someone else is also an arsehole makes you any less of an arsehole?
As for people changing their mind.. isn't that what Sports Washing is supposed to achieve? It wouldn't be a tactic if it didn't work.
Indeed. Seems the project is going well for the Qataris. Which is bad for the world at large.
Not just migrant workers but the amount of illegal immigrants proping up small/ medium sized businesses is appallng. They're virtually working for free. But hey we don't *cough* turn a blind eye.
Is the wanker saying FIFA are favoring African and Asian teams and using the correct awarded goal to Japan as example? 
Lost a lot of respect for him today, carragher would have been a better pundit
Bizarre take from them.
Keane and Souness have made a show of themselves over Ronaldo while Neville has had a disastrous tournament.
Neville I'm pretty sure is just throwing a prolonged tantrum about the refs because England are out and because he'd already got the agenda in his head before that. He always does stuff like this. He used to be a good pundit until he let the drama queen out of the box.
I can't even take Keane seriously since he started having a go at Ten Hag over Ronaldo every single week. But then not sure what to expect from someone who got kicked out of his club by his manager and kicked out of a world cup squad by his manager.
Sourness has never not been an idiot.
I can't even take Keane seriously since he started having a go at Ten Hag over Ronaldo every single week. But then not sure what to expect from someone who got kicked out of his club by his manager and kicked out of a world cup squad by his manager.
Sourness has never not been an idiot.
This is absolutely laughable
Do elaborate, please.
He's had a shocking World Cup. Petty, emotive, led by stronger personalities in the studio against his better judgement, and his credibility over his social values trashed.