Gary Neville’s Qatari F1 adventure shows the terrifying expansion of his empire

Gary Neville’s YouTube channel, The Overlap, takes its name from the attacking runs made by a full-back, but also its owner’s determination not to confine his presence and opinions to soccer alone, hence the ironic title of his podcast: Stick To Football. We regret to inform you that Gary is now overlapping all over the place.

Formula 1 is the latest territory to be annexed by the seemingly unstoppable force of Red Nev. Where Sky Sports Football viewers found their Sunday disappointingly/blissfully free of Neville and his punchy, provocative punditry, fans of Sky Sports Formula 1’s weekend coverage were confronted with Gary doing his thing at the Qatar Grand Prix. A figure who provokes admiration and irritation in equal measure, he was at the car-driving seemingly on some sort of jolly-up with the Mercedes team, giving his opinion about the preparation and eye for technical detail that F1 excels in, and generally having a good time and being a respectful guest as he chatted away with Sky’s reporter Rachel Brookes.

Before his comments about flags, the stickiest non-football wicket Gary had got himself on to was related to Qatar, making this an eyebrow-raising pick of F1 races for him to broadcast from. Around the time of the last World Cup, he’d fired off a few pretty standard criticisms of the Persian Gulf state regarding beastliness to foreign workers, gay people and so on that must surely have felt like a free hit, but had to defend himself against accusations of hypocrisy because he was nevertheless happy to be paid by beIN Sports, that country’s state broadcaster. He also worked there for ITV during the tournament. Gary then unwisely overlapped onto Have I Got News For You, where Ian Hislop left the former United full-back with twisted blood in a toe-curling exchange where Gary weakly tried the raising awareness/shining a spotlight line and Hislop said: “There’s another option: you stay at home and highlight the abuses. You don’t have to go and take the Qataris’ money. It’s just not a very good defence.” No point in anyone trying to add anything to that other than to say: stop it, he’s already dead.

Aside from the Sky football work, the property development and the very accomplished delivery of heartfelt, entertaining, revealing interviews with lesser-spotted former players you don’t tend to hear much from (Paul Scholes and Ashely Cole, recently), there’s the forays into political commentary, with more mixed results shall we politely say, and now this bit of cross-pollination with another Sky sport. Furthermore, I notice that The Overlap channel was this week streaming live coverage of German football – Borussia Mönchengladbach vs RB Leipzig, since you didn’t ask – which suggests perhaps yet another possible avenue: the early seeds of some sort of G-Nev-backed live sports hub? Feasible if sports rights atomised and you could pick up games for low fees.

I personally quite enjoyed Gary at the Formula 1 but my opinion is of no consequence because given the choice between paint drying and watching cars going brumbrum round in a circle until the one in the best motor wins, give me the emulsion every time. Or even Theo Walcott on the Chelsea vs Arsenal game. With Gary absent, as mentioned and Roy Keane also off, there were opportunities for what you might call the next generation. Conor Coady, a natural, did well on the Aston Villa vs Wolves and I can see him becoming a fixture. James Maddison, John McGinn and Declan Rice are others who seem well-suited.

All the footballers mentioned in this article are obviously extremely well-off by any reasonable measure (although it has been funny seeing Gary’s horror on his podcast recently when he’s indelicately asked each guest what was their biggest contract when a player and then had to confront the fact that his beloved Sir Fergie might have done him dirty with the pitifully thin gruel of 1.75 million per annum) but these younger lads really are properly minted, so there will have to be some appeal beyond money alone to go into media work. A lot of the younger lot seem too personable and at ease with themselves to go down the Keane/Neville fire-and-brimstone route, though, so maybe the Neville Empire will continue to grow unchecked and unrivalled for years to come. It raises the frightening question: will he ever stop overlapping?

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