Gary Neville has conceded he "didn't have it in him" to speak out against the Glazer family while he was a player at Manchester United in his new tell-all book.
The former Red Devils right-back has been a particularly vocal critic of the American family who own United in recent years, but has since admitted that that was not always the case. Fans have long protested those at the top of the club hierarchy, something Neville felt was always just part and parcel of football.
Neville discussed how as a boyhood United fan himself, whoever has owned the club has been unpopular with large sections of the Red Devils faithful. Therefore, it took a while before the ex-England international started to realise the Glazers' going wrongs.
Recalling his time under the Glazers' in ' The People's Game: A View From A Front Seat In Football', Neville wrote:"I didn’t have it in me to speak out. Footballers now have much more character and presence about them. We harp back to characters of old. But there’s more to character than playing on with a bloodied bandage around your head.
"I maintain that players today are stronger willed and have more personality than players of 25 years ago. They consistently stand up for issues beyond football, as we’ve seen with Marcus Rashford on child poverty, Raheem Sterling and Tyrone Mings on racism.
"I was a strong-willed footballer, sometimes referred to as Red Nev. I was the union rep and had some basic business understanding at that young age. I was willing to take on the FA and threaten a strike. But at United, you didn’t cross the boundary into off-the-field issues. None of the strong personalities questioned it. And I could justify the Glazers’ game plan in my head."
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Neville went on to explain how the Glazers' participation in the botched attempt to form a European Super League was the turning point - he couldn't bite his tongue any longer and was damning in his public assessment of their tenure as owners of United.
While that may have been the first time the former defender had aired his views on the Glazers in public, he did reveal that privately they went down in his estimation in the aftermath of Sir Alex Ferguson's deaprture from the club.
The decision to only allow David Moyes 10 months at the helm is not one that went down well with Neville, who also dubbed the businessmen as "petty and small-minded" for their attempt to block the development of Hotel Football - a hospitality venue co-owned by the ex-United defender.
