Ex- Sky Sports presenter and current beIN Sports host Richard Keys has publicly called out Gary Neville for his comments on BT Sport's coverage of last weekend's Champions League final.
The clash between Liverpool and Real Madrid was marred by controversy and saw the kick-off time delayed by half an hour due to serious fan congestion and safety concerns outside the Stade de France. Reports of tear gas and excessive force being used by local authorities has prompted governing body UEFA to launch their own investigation as to what caused the chaos.
As this was going on, BT Sport's coverage relied on their presenter Jake Humphrey and pundits Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard to offer up pre-match analysis for longer than originally planned. Neville was not a fan of the way the network covered events as they unfolded.
The former England international quote-tweeted a post that said: "Surprised BT sport don’t have a team on standby outside of stadium, getting little to no sense of the major story from the broadcaster," with a reply that read: "Are you surprised? I’m not. They can’t react or aren’t agile to things like this happening".
Neville continued to show his disdain with their efforts by liking a tweet that read: "Fair to say BT Sport and their lightweight team are totally unsuited to covering an event like this still chatting football, 5 Live covering what is happening properly".
The ex-United star also shared a post stating: "You’d have thought BT have enough cameras to send someone outside and film the carnage to inform viewers. Prattling on with pundits and waiting for an opening ceremony is reminiscent of the tone-deaf TV coverage in build-up to Euro 2020 final amid chaos outside."
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However, Keys has now leapt to the defence of BT while also making a dig over some of Neville's past coverage of similar events. The presenter tweeted: "F**k me @GNev2 Is there nothing you’re not an expert on? I’ve worked with guys @btsport & they’re top pros as @mrjakehumphrey has said.
"I'm quite certain Saturday was a challenging night for everyone. Just like covering the OT riot you instigated & covered badly at Sky." Humphrey has also had his say via his LinkedIn page, launching a staunch defence of his team's coverage.
"Possibly one of the hardest sports events I've ever covered. And I've done some tricky ones," the ex-Formula 1 host wrote. "We had limited information about what was going on outside, my talkback (the umbilical cord to my production team) suddenly stopped working, the TV compound was impacted by the tear gas so our production team were barricaded in their trucks. And many of us had friends and family at the game and we had no idea if they were even safe.
"And amongst all that we were trying our best to get the tone right, under the scrutiny that seems exclusive to live football. Hopefully you wouldn't have known too much about all that, the BT Sport production team are up there with the very best I have ever worked with."
