Former Manchester United and England right-back, and current co-owner of Salford City FC, Gary Neville has said there is “too much good” in the Project Big Picture plans for them to be dismissed. He has called for the Premier League, the Football League, FA and Football Supporters Association to “get round the table” in order to start negotiations. Neville made these comments in a retweet from Guardian journalist David Conn’s link to his own analytical piece about the Project Big Picture, a name given to a proposal advocating for reform of the English football pyramid.
These planned reforms were devised primarily by Liverpool and Manchester United and were made public earlier this week. Included in this proposal is the shrinking of the Premier League from 20 to 18 clubs, the scraping of the Carabao Cup and Community Shield and 25% of future TV deals being shared out with Football League Clubs, ending the parachute payment scheme.
While Neville also states “there are parts of the proposal that require negotiation”, primarily aimed at the proposed change to give the nine longest serving top flight clubs “special voting rights” on certain issues such as broadcast contracts and financial rules. His suggested backing of the project as a whole show that he believes the reforms could help save many clubs in the Football League such as Salford. Who like many have been left struggling to cope with the financial implications of fans not being able to attend games since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Author – Frankie Elliot
Sub-edited – Bradley Page
