Learn new skills during lockdown, Gary Neville tells players

Gary Neville has asked footballers to learn new skills during lockdown so as to prepare for a potential financial hit.

And Neville, who owns a stake in fourth-tier side Salford City said “If I was a football player today, I’d be online learning, doing a degree, doing a BTEC (qualification) and trying to get a dual-skill. That’s not panicking, that’s not suggesting that their careers are over, it’s just planning,” Neville told Sky Sports.

“The jobs in football will be less, the money will be less, and players will need to go and do a job next year or something next year out of football. That’s a fact, it’s going to happen.

“And they have to plan for that now. The smart ones will get their head around it quickly, and will go and do a different skill, look at the jobs they can do in the short-term to bring in money for their families.”

Also Neville said “As a Salford City owner, I have players who potentially have diabetes, players with asthma,” .

“Am I going to put them on a football field and risk their health and safety for a game of football? The answer is quite simply ‘no’. I am not sure how Premier League clubs are going to get around it.”

“The testing thing is a nonsense,” he said.

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“There is no way the Premier League can sell to the public that they’re going to have access to tens of thousands of tests when the frontline workers can’t get them.”