Jamie Carragher has been issued with a spiky retort on his outburst on Saudi Arabia's "sportswashing" with an example of how Celtic and Rangers fare against the teams with the big bucks.
The Sky Sports mouthpiece took to Twitter to share his angst at the number of big name players making the eye-watering switches to the Saudi Pro League with world beaters Karim Benzema and N'Golo Kante following in the footsteps of Cristiano Ronaldo in recent weeks. It's a trend that irks the former Liverpool captain who took aim at the Premier League and UEFA to do something.
But Carragher was issued a swift and decisive reminder than teams across Europe can often view the overwhelming vacuum of wealth towards England's top flight in the same vein, as well-known reporter Guillem Balague took the pundit to task over the Premier League's indiscretions.
The example of Celtic and Rangers, who both struggled to overcome the likes of Real Madrid, Napoli, Liverpool and RB Leipzig in the Champions League last season, was used as ammunition by Balague to show the discrepancy between the wealth of England's big hitters and the rest of Europe.
Yet Carragher didn't back down and was issued with a hard reality check as Balague went to bat for the Old Firm and accused the Englishman of misrepresenting what he had said.
Carragher wrote: "Bernardo Silva is in his peak years and has been one of the best players in Europe for the last five years! I wasn’t worried about the Saudi League taking players in their 30’s, a touch worried with players below the elite (Neves) but if this happens it feels like a game changer Saudi have taken over Golf, the big Boxing fights & now they want to take over football!! This sports washing needs to be stopped!"
One fan responded: "When @GuillemBalague mentioned that the rest of Europe feels like something should be done about the Premier League's over spending, Carra said, so what? That’s their problem. Now it’s happening to the premier league IT MUST STOP!"
Carragher wrote back: "It’s not the Premier League it’s football in general. My debate with Guillem was about Real Madrid & Barcelona complaining about the PL having more money, when they’ve taken our players for years!! Bellingham has just gone there for over 100M."
Yet Balague slapped him down by saying: "No Jamie. The debate we had was about the power of the Premier League and distribution of wealth. It happens in the PL and I would like it to be the same in Europe so the likes of Celtic, Rangers, Brugge, Ajax can compete better. Cleverly you made it into Real and Barcelona getting money from the PL, which I didn't mention once. So it became what you said I had said which I had not said! Lol It was clever debating from you but not at all what I was defending."
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