Gary Neville labelled Barcelona fans 'sensitive' following the former Manchester United player's tweet telling Frenkie de Jong to consider taking legal action against the club.
The Sky Sports pundit caused a stir on Monday when he accused Barcelona of 'bullying' De Jong by withholding money from the player while signing players such as Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha for big transfer fees. It is believed that Barcelona owe De Jong up to £17m in deferred wages and the player is still yet to receive the money.
United and Barcelona agreed a deal in principle for the transfer of De Jong more than two weeks ago, but the issue surrounding his unpaid wages is currently believed to be holding up any deal taking place. Erik ten Hag has already teamed up with one of his former Ajax players with the arrival of Lisandro Martinez, but he is keen to bring the midfielder to Old Trafford as well.
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Neville initially took to Twitter a few days ago to criticise Spanish club over their handling of the deal. The former United captain said: "De Jong should consider legal action v[ersus] Barcelona and all players should be behind him. A club spending fortunes on new players whilst not paying the ones they have under contract their full money is immoral and a breach. FIFPRO should be all over bullying like this and stop it."
However, that wasn't the end of things. Neville followed up with a successive tweet on the matter after his initial post was reported to Twitter by a fan in Germany. The Network Enforcement Act in Germany obligates social media companies to combat fake news, hate speech and misinformation, but Neville was found to have done no wrong.
He took to social media to post a screenshot of a communication received from Twitter, informing him that the social media company had received complaints over his initial De Jong tweet. Despite this, Neville's call for the Dutchman to consider legal action was deemed to be perfectly legal itself 'under the Twitter Rules'.
Neville accompanied the screenshot with the following: "I’ve been found innocent thankfully in a German Court of Law! Those Barca fans are sensitive".
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