Understanding England's potential Euro 2028 ban and the unusual debate involving a striker and Gary Neville

This weekend, England received a warning that they may be at risk of being removed from hosting the European Championship in 2028 due to worries surrounding the influence of the planned independent football regulator.

The government reintroduced the bill to establish a body responsible for overseeing the top five tiers of the men’s game in July, insisting that a watchdog will ‘protect’ clubs and ensure ‘financial stability’.

BBC Sport this weekend reported that a letter sent from Uefa general secretary Theodore Theodoridis to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy outlined concerns that Uefa’s regulations state that any regulation should be managed by national federations, rather than the government.

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"We have specific rules that guard against this in order to guarantee the autonomy of sport and fairness of sporting competition; the ultimate sanction for which would be excluding the federation from Uefa and teams from competition,” they quote the letter as saying.

However, the Guardian have since reported that Uefa and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) sources have indicated that England’s place at Euro 2028 would not be at risk, with the letter more concerned about the extent of the regulator’s eventual powers.

The bill now needs to work its way through Parliament before it becomes law, but these latest reports did see two former Premier League players embroiled in a social media argument, that quickly turned bizarre.

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Former Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville took to X to dismiss the report as ‘scaremongering’, by those who opposed the introduction of a regulator and were looking to maintain the Premier League’s status quo.

“They will do anything to stop it coming in and are happy to create misinformation and apply soft power in the right places in the meantime,” he posted, before former Southampton and Liverpool striker Rickie Lambert waded into the debate, suggesting it was part of a plan to ‘destroy out way of life and society’.

You ok Rickie? https://t.co/Mr8P04dUgZSeptember 16, 2024

He posted in reply to Neville: “It’s becoming clear exactly who and what you are @GNev2.

“Instead of using the footballing community to come together and stop what is being implemented onto us, you are using your position to try and persuade them to accept the corrupt, cowardly shadow governments [sic] plan to destroy our way of life and society.”

Neville’s reply was a simple: “You ok Rickie?”, followed by two laughing emojis.

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