Gary Neville on the sale of Wembley

[Copps is Magic]

Worth a watch. Respect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tzGQVA601I

[ravenrover]

What makes GN an expert on the sale or not of Wembley?

[The Beast]

Whether he's an expert or not, is he not allowed to express an opinion.
I think he makes a valid point.

[GazLaz]

He was asked to give his opinion to the committee and he did.

[dickos1]

I don’t really agree with him, a few reasons why. We’ve never owned Wembley anyway until 1999, so in 66 we didn’t, in 96 we didn’t. We’ve always just rented it.
The FA can’t and won’t be able to make clubs give up money not sure why he just thinks premier league clubs would just agree to give money to the FA, they wouldn’t!
We don’t gain anything from owning it, all the major games will still be played there, it’s good for the country to have the autumn internationals around the country.
We will be getting almost 900 million that they can invest into grass roots.

[SydneyRover]

I think GN raised a lot of good points and skimming money off the rich clubs would not be a bad thing in the long term it will be less money they can pour into players, not a lot less but less which i think would be good.

[dickos1]

I think GN raised a lot of good points and skimming money off the rich clubs would not be a bad thing in the long term it will be less money they can pour into players, not a lot less but less which i think would be good.

But the FA wouldn’t be able to get from them, the premier league does no favours for the fa

[sedwardsdrfc]

Yeah doing what Neville suggests probably isn't possible or easy and if we take a step back and look at it maybe it is actually a good idea. I get why people don't like the idea of selling national assets, i'm not exactly a fan of it, but if this was Richard Branson or an english billionaire suggesting it I wonder if it would of been received better.

The more i think about it the more it i think why on earth does the national team need to own a stadium they are there to play football and win not own and manage large assets. And if the money is used wisely then it could help our future generations finally win the big tournament. It's long been a issue that compared to Germany, Spain & France we've had drastically fewer qualified coaches in youth football this could correct that. 

[silent majority]

I think GN raised a lot of good points and skimming money off the rich clubs would not be a bad thing in the long term it will be less money they can pour into players, not a lot less but less which i think would be good.

But the FA wouldn’t be able to get from them, the premier league does no favours for the fa

That's not strictly correct. Between them they all finance the Football Foundation which is the charity dedicated to putting funds into grass-roots football. The vast majority of the money comes from the PL.

The spending has amounted to about £1.7 billion since they set out in 2000. The reason Gary Neville was asked for his view is that he currently operates as an ambassador to the FF.

[The Red Baron]

Although I think there are pros and cons to selling Wembley Stadium (how many FAs around the world own national stadia?) I am far from convinced that the FA would use the proceeds wisely. How much of that money would really find its way into Grassroots football? And would it be enough to make a difference?

[Cantley Rover]

As long as there isn't a stipulation that England play all their games there get rid of it.
We seem to perform much better away from Wembley. Lets have more games up north. Old Trafford, St James Park etc

[dickos1]

On the contrary from august to February they won’t use the national stadium.

[dickos1]

I think GN raised a lot of good points and skimming money off the rich clubs would not be a bad thing in the long term it will be less money they can pour into players, not a lot less but less which i think would be good.

But the FA wouldn’t be able to get from them, the premier league does no favours for the fa

That's not strictly correct. Between them they all finance the Football Foundation which is the charity dedicated to putting funds into grass-roots football. The vast majority of the money comes from the PL.

The spending has amounted to about £1.7 billion since they set out in 2000. The reason Gary Neville was asked for his view is that he currently operates as an ambassador to the FF.

But the premier league wouldn’t agree to taking more of the tv money off the clubs.
There’s a massive issue with how the tv funding is filtered down the leagues and they aren’t falling over themselves to help

[colincramb]

But once it’s paid off by 2024, won’t the stadium actually start making the FA money?

[silent majority]

I think GN raised a lot of good points and skimming money off the rich clubs would not be a bad thing in the long term it will be less money they can pour into players, not a lot less but less which i think would be good.

But the FA wouldn’t be able to get from them, the premier league does no favours for the fa

That's not strictly correct. Between them they all finance the Football Foundation which is the charity dedicated to putting funds into grass-roots football. The vast majority of the money comes from the PL.

The spending has amounted to about £1.7 billion since they set out in 2000. The reason Gary Neville was asked for his view is that he currently operates as an ambassador to the FF.

But the premier league wouldn’t agree to taking more of the tv money off the clubs.
There’s a massive issue with how the tv funding is filtered down the leagues and they aren’t falling over themselves to help

Things are never that simple.

Firstly, as the PL would argue, they do filter down enough money, after all it's their money and nobody else's. You may or may not agree with that statement but what would be an acceptable level?

The same applies to grass roots funding. For years we have argued for an increase in the funding and we have seen some sucess's, but its just a drop in the ocean. The PL don't have the power to take money off the clubs, its's only the clubs themselves who have that power. As Richard Scudamore would argue, and does, they are just a competition organiser, they have no power to dictate to the clubs what they should and shouldn't do.

[dickos1]

That’s exactly my point, the premier league can’t and won’t take money off the premier league clubs to fund the fa in the way Neville is suggesting.
It’s alright him just saying take 2.5% off their revenue and give it to the fa and then we don’t need to sell the stadium.
It would never happen, because as you say the premier league can’t force them to do that.

I’ve no idea what would be an acceptable level but the way it is now is not right, regardless of if they say they give enough, Stevie wonder can see that they don’t

[keith79]

Someone will be getting rich and it won't be grassroots football.