Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his coaching staff want Gary Neville to tone down his anti-Glazer family rhetoric and are unhappy with him, believing that his outbursts helped incite the protests at Old Trafford on Sunday.
Demonstrations were held outside and then inside Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon, as well as at the Lowry Hotel where players were staying.
This was ahead of the Premier League clash between Manchester United and Liverpool, which ultimately had to be postponed as a result, now taking place on Thursday 13 May.
The protests were held after the Manchester United owners involvement in the failed European Super League project, which has riled up a fanbase which already thought badly of the ownership.
Many fans want the Glazers to sell the club as soon as possible and Neville has firmly added his voice to that campaign, passionately speaking against the Glazers through his position as a Sky Sports pundit.
The Daily Mail report that this has annoyed Solskjaer and his staff, with the postponed Liverpool match now leading to a crazy schedule for the Red Devils, who now play six games from 6-23 May.
The protests also turned violent, with not only the fans getting onto the pitch and into the dressing rooms at Old Trafford, but six police officers being injured as bottles and barriers were thrown.
Solskjaer spoke on Wednesday, making a thinly veiled dig at the instigators.
‘When it becomes a police matter that’s not nice and it has not been helped by certain individuals,’ said Solskjaer.
‘I have to say that’s another part of it, that’s your (the media’s) end of it.’
United take on Roma in their Europa League semi-final second leg on Thursday, before playing Aston Villa on Sunday, Leicester on Tuesday and Liverpool on Thursday in a punishing Premier League run.
Speaking on Sky Sports on Sunday, Neville said: ‘I’ve never thought they were brilliant owners but I’ve always thought within football there are worse owners than the Glazer family.
‘However I think all football fans should unite today behind what Manchester United fans have done because honestly what [the Glazers] did two weeks ago was really dangerous for English football – we must not forget that.
‘They tried to walk away and create a closed-shop league that would have basically created a famine – a famine – in this country for every other football club. They tried to create a famine in English football, in Dutch football, in German football, in French football, all over Europe.
‘Those 15 clubs would have walked away from their leagues with that money and basically destroyed the ethos of the pyramid of relegation and promotion in English football. So that’s number one: it’s unforgivable what they did as a family two weeks ago.
‘I get Graeme [Souness’] point around them paying themselves a dividend. We could walk into the chippy down the road tomorrow, make a bid, they could sell it and we could own the chippy and the local public may not be happy with the new chips that they get – I get that principle of a free market.
‘However, the Glazer family two weeks ago tried to implement something that would have damaged every single community in this country that has got football at the heart of it. And that is why they are dangerous. Florentino Perez is dangerous, [Joan] Laporte, [Andrea] Agnelli – they are dangerous to the concept of equal opportunity and fair play in European football.
‘Let’s not forget what we’re arguing about here. Today there is anger, I would hope tomorrow it switches to mobilisation towards reform and regulation and behind a fan-led review.
‘When I talked two weeks ago about these two football clubs, Manchester United and Liverpool, they should act like the grandfathers of English football, demonstrating compassion, spreading the wealth through the [football] family, their experience, being fair. They haven’t done. They’ve demonstrated self-greed and tried to walk away with all the money themselves and left the [football] family struggling below.
‘That is not what you do at this football club or Liverpool football club. So whether the Glazer family have been good or bad, what they did two weeks ago is not acceptable and an apology is not good enough.
‘And Joel Glazer saying he wants to rebuild the trust with the football fans at this club: he never had the trust! He’s never communicated to them, he’s never spoken to them, he’s never said a word.
‘So today we can be angry, the game may not go ahead, the fans are angry. But they’ve protested peacefully and we have to accept that you’re allowed to protest in this country and it’s every person’s right. But tomorrow it’s about reform and regulation because there are six or seven people within English football who have it under their control and that control has to be taken away from them.’
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