A few months after his 50th birthday, Gary Neville is in no danger of slowing down. Player, coach, manager, pundit, co-commentator, club owner, hotel and cafe owner, independent regulator backer, Labour supporter, even part-time Dragon, the former Manchester United defender hasn’t been short of jobs over the decades. Every single thing he does, he approaches with the same passion.
“That’s my whole life, I only do things I’m really passionate about,” he tells FourFourTwo with typical verve. “I haven’t got time to be doing things that I don’t feel a thrill from, that great enthusiasm to wake up in the morning.”
As he speaks to us about another of his projects, it comes as no surprise that he’s immediately talking with the same sincerity, desire and drive as he would about Manchester United.
Neville on creating his own university
Eight years ago, Neville, brother Phil and fellow Class of ’92 team-mates Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt co-founded University Academy 92, in partnership with Lancaster University. The higher education institution opened next to Old Trafford cricket ground in 2019, initially offering degrees in accounting and finance, business studies, journalism, media and communications, physical education and sports science.
Now, it’s unveiling its first business of football degree, giving students the opportunity to learn a range of skills that could help them to gain a career connected to the beautiful game. Speaking to us to announce the degree, Neville is much more than the face of the project, brought in as a famous name to offer a few PR platitudes. No, as with everything else he does, it’s obvious he’s all in and across every detail. He’s been involved in devising the subjects taught, and has helped to organise partnerships – including with his own club, League Two Salford City.
“At the beginning we didn’t want to be pigeonholed into people thinking, ‘Oh, they’re just a football university with the Class of ’92’, so we stayed away from football,” he explains about the new degree. “We started with about 75 students, in September we’re going to have 1,600, and it’s become apparent we’re best placed to deliver this degree and talk about football, not just with our ownership group of me, Ryan, Scholesy, Nicky Butt and Phil, but also the connections we have.
“We’ve got Altrincham FC, Salford City, Manchester United, the Wheelchair Football Association and the EFL all contributing towards this, which talks about the different areas of football. There are so many different areas now – football clubs are property developers, concert holders, they have NFL games, they’re content and production units, they’re on documentaries, they deliver YouTube, journalism and magazines.
“If you think of any job in the football sphere, not just clubs but outside of that – like FourFourTwo, which has been around for a long time – you need people with passion and understanding of different areas. From financial to operations, analytics to fan engagement, community to the women’s game and all of the things that inform football.”
The degree will cover many of those areas and is believed to be the first to also include ‘on-pitch’ courses, on subjects such as using data analysis for player recruitment. “A football club’s largest investment is on first-team players, so it’s making sure you don’t make mistakes in that area,” continues Neville. “In every business, you have to recruit good people. To do that, we rely on our own feeling and judgement, meeting people and watching them, seeing what they’ve done previously.
“Now we’re able to rely upon this data bank that exists within the game: physical and performance data, understanding how to bring a specialism to your recruitment department – Brentford, Brighton and clubs like that have taken it to a new level over the last five or 10 years. The clubs that recruit best are the ones who outperform.”
It offers a new route into football – not every young person is a talented player themselves, but plenty understand the game well enough to build a career.
“You’re absolutely right,” says Neville, who was ranked at no.15 in FourFourTwo’s list of the greatest Manchester United players ever.
“The passion for football seems greater than ever – stadiums are full, people love watching it, talking about it. I’ve spent my life doing that.
“Young people are more independent than ever before – us 50-year-olds believe the young generation aren’t as tough, but I think they’re tougher than we were. We were almost told what to do by our parents – you must do this, you must do that. It’s very difficult to do that now with young people – they know what they want and the areas they want to work in. I really admire that, and football is such an exciting area.”
Neville, his former team-mates and key football figures will be among those who visit for guest lectures. “The Class of ’92 will be handing our experience over and you can only imagine the networks we’ve got, people who can speak to our students and give them a direct insight,” says the footballer-turned-entrepreneur, who’s also made several guest appearances as an investor on *Dragons’ Den*. “That could be people in executive positions, media positions, data, analysis, recruitment.
“We’ll also give students direct access to our information from Salford City – real-life data of a football club and how it operates. Me and David [Beckham] are owners of the club, while Ryan, Nicky, Paul and Phil are all passionate about it and have been owners and investors – we will transfer that knowledge.”
He’s clearly committed to UA92. “UA92 is probably the greatest thing we’ve ever done, the greatest thing I’ve ever done,” says Neville. “We came up with this idea of a university eight years ago to impact young people. The Class of ’92 were born out of people believing in, teaching and mentoring us, showing us the right standards.
“We do that at UA92. We set it up to give back to young people, to give them a chance and a pathway in life. People ask me, ‘What will you look back upon, the moment you’re not here any more?’ I genuinely believe it could be UA92.”
The business of football degree will begin in September, with further entry points available in November, January, February, April and June. Applications are now open – for more information, visit UA92.ac.uk
