Gary Neville sends takeover warning to new Chelsea owners amid fears they could become next Man Utd or Arsenal
GARY NEVILLE has warned that Chelsea need 'smart owners' if they want to continue winning trophies.
Neville sent a stern warning to any Chelsea bidders on Friday, just as the deadline for bids had passed.
When speaking on Sky Sports, he said: "The new ownership could set Chelsea back because Roman Abramovich and the people he’s had operating the club have been fantastic owners with respect to what they’ve done in terms of winning.
"They’ve been a success machine for the last 10-20 years.
"That doesn’t just come with money, we’ve seen at Manchester United and Arsenal where they’ve put billions into the team and not had the success that Chelsea have had.
"Chelsea can feel comfortable that they’ll have rich owners, but will they have football smart owners? Because that’s what Abramovich has been.
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"For all of the talk over the last few weeks, all the sanctions, the distasteful end to his reign, he has been a pretty impressive football operator and he probably doesn’t get the credit for it because other people operate the club.
"But he sets the tone, you can’t just take it away from the fact that he is the owner."
The calculated that Manchester United have had a net spend of £903million over the past 10 seasons - more than any other team in the world.
Since 2012 they have won the Premier League, Europa League, FA Cup and League Cup once.
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They have also won two community shields.
But, during that time local rivals Manchester City have spent less, but won more.
Arsenal were named as the fifth-highest, with a net spend of £489.7million.
In the last 10 years they have won four FA Cups and two Community Shields.
Under the ownership of Abramovich, Chelsea have won five Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, five FA Cups, three League Cups and two Europa Leagues.
However, the club is about to go through some major changes.
Abramovich has been forced to sell up following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
British property tycoon Nick Candy is known to be one of the bidders, and he has high hopes for the future of the club.
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Candy told SunSport: "I don't think we should end up like Manchester United where we have one rich family that owns Chelsea and there should be a new benchmark of owning football clubs.
"Why does there have to be one rich family that the fans end up hating because they don't invest?"