Gary Neville wants to see Sunderland competing for the Premier League title and in the Champions League - but admits that under the existing Financial Fair Play rules it could never happen. Neville was talking as part of a discussion with fellow Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher and presenter - and Sunderland non-excutive director - Dave Jones on Sky's Monday Night Football show, debating the charges that have been laid against Premier League champions Manchester City under the FFP rules.
Ex-Manchester United star Neville has been a strident critic of the FFP rules, saying they were introduced to prevent a group of elite clubs from seeing their dominance challenged by teams who had been taken over by wealthy backers. There were no such restrictions when Blackburn Rovers' then-owner Jack Walker spent tens of millions of his own cash to win the Premier League title in 1994-95.
And Chelsea, under former owner Roman Abramovich, and Manchester City, under Sheikh Mansour, have managed to break into the elite, with the Londoners making the leap just before the FFP rules were introduced while City's more recent rise is now being scrutinised. But Neville says the FFP rules mean that a club such as Sunderland could not tread the same path as Blackburn, even if they had an owner willing to invest unlimited funds into the transfer market.
