Gary Neville has taken aim at the BBC over the way they handled his brother Phil’s early media career. The two brothers racked up over 1,200 combined Premier League appearances before embarking on separate punditry careers. Gary has thrived in front of the camera, striking up a box-office partnership with Liverpool icon Jamie Carragher in the Sky Sports studio.
Phil, meanwhile, has found it harder to make a lasting impression on audiences. After retiring in 2013, he started doing punditry work for the BBC and was part of their commentary team at the World Cup a year later. However, he endured a difficult debut with his bland performance drawing complaints from underwhelmed viewers.
Gary spoke about his brother’s media career during a recent appearance on Stick To Football, where he also discussed Michael Owen’s media career. The latter recently made headlines by comparing his playing days to those of Wayne Rooney.
After saying that he understood criticism of Owen’s career, Gary said: “I thought it was scandalous the way he was treated in his early media career, the way people commented on it.”
Ian Wright then suggested that he was ‘hung out’ to dry, to which Gary replied: “Absolutely. Wrighty, you’ll know this. Co-commentary is the hardest thing to do.
“This happened with my brother. Where they put him in his first game, the BBC put him in his first game in the World Cup, England versus Italy with 20 million people watching.
“Sky, with me, when I first joined… it’s still the worst thing I do now, co-commentary, it’s the toughest thing I do. They put me on eight games, 10 games, that were like, Fulham against Blackburn. I remember doing that game on a Sunday.
“Not a lot of people are watching but it beds you in, it eases you in. Villa against [Manchester] City, which wasn’t a big game back then. I did loads of games on MUTV.
“They (Sky) put me on a big game in March, it took them eight, nine months of trialling me and testing me and feeding back to me and being harsh on me by the way.
“I remember once in January saying: ‘This is not for me’, to the producer. He said: ‘Stick at it, but you need to be more conversational, more yourself’.
“I had loads of advice. To give Michael Owen Premier League games on TNT first up, and to give Phil that World Cup… honestly, you are throwing a lamb into the lions’ den.”
Phil kept working for the BBC for the duration of the tournament, providing commentary on three other games. He later moved into coaching and now manages Portland Timbers, having previously been in charge of the Lionesses and Inter Miami.
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