Jamie Carragher has criticised the seven Premier League rebels who vetoed a ban on loan deals between related clubs and says Newcastle United should have to ‘pay’ for the ‘mistake’ they made in signing Sandro Tonali.
The Magpies, who are owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, have been linked with a January loan swoop for Ruben Neves, who currently plays for PIF-owned Al-Hilal, as a replacement for marquee summer signing Tonali, who is serving a 10-month ban for breaching betting rules.
Such a deal could have been outlawed this week when the Premier League held a vote to implement a temporary ban on deals between related clubs; 14 votes were required but seven clubs – Chelsea, Manchester City, Newcastle, Sheffield United, Everton, Wolves and Nottingham Forest – opposed it.
As such, Newcastle could now sign Neves on loan from effectively a sister club just a few months after he left Wolves in a £47million deal – something Carragher feels is completely wrong and should not be allowed to happen.
Speaking on Sky Bet’s Stick To Football show, Carragher said: ‘The problem with it yesterday, which I don’t like, when you talk about Newcastle and you talk about Neves and it’s just almost like a rumour.
‘When you think about Tonali, Newcastle have bought a player from AC Milan, and you could argue – strongly – that Newcastle haven’t done their due diligence.
‘They don’t know enough about what’s going on in this guy’s private life, they’ve then spent a lot of money and they’re going to lose the player. Now that should hurt them as a club because they haven’t done things the right way.
‘So they shouldn’t then be allowed to go and get, for instance, maybe a Neves – who is a £50m player – for free, on a loan, because they’ve made a mistake.
‘If they’ve made a mistake, they should almost pay for it – like you would do with scouting and bringing players in.’
Fellow pundit Gary Neville does not believe the issue can be regulated by the Premier League themselves, saying: ‘This is beyond football people to stop this.
‘What you’d hope for, at some point in the future, is that good leadership will return to this country, generally not just in football but in parliament as well. And we’ll have a good government who basically bring back some sort of law and order and some empathy and some sort of social approach.
‘That doesn’t mean that we can’t have an unbelievable Premier League, it just means that this type of manoeuvring – which we’re watching at the moment – financial manoeuvring, power shifts, political games that we see [might stop].
‘I think what we’re seeing in the game at the moment is really dangerous.’
MORE : Steve Bruce reveals how close Manchester United were to signing Newcastle star Sean Longstaff
MORE : Chelsea and Manchester City among clubs who voted against banning loan deals between related clubs
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