Tevez launches amazing attack on Neville

NEWS:CARLOS TEVEZ has launched an incredible new attack on Gary Neville, accusing his former Manchester United team-mate of being a "boot-licking moron" after their confrontation during the League Cup semi-final first leg on Tuesday.

The Manchester City striker described his side’s 2-1 victory in the match at Eastlands as “revenge” and said his provocative goal celebration had been directed only at Neville and not Alex Ferguson or the United fans.

Before the game Neville had said Tevez was “not worth” the €29 million (£25m) it would have cost the club to keep him last summer. Tevez made a gesture towards Neville after scoring his first goal, from the penalty spot. The England veteran responded by raising his middle finger.

Speaking in a radio interview on ESPN Argentina, Tevez said: “My celebration was directed at Gary Neville. He acted like a complete sock-sucker (boot-licker) when he said I wasn’t worth £25 million, just to suck up to the manager. I don’t know what the hell that idiot is talking about me for. I never said anything about him.

“I will never show a lack of respect towards anyone. Just as I was running off to celebrate the penalty I had scored, I came across Gary and I said to myself: ‘Shut your trap, keep quiet.’ I didn’t go overboard in my celebration and it was directed at Gary, not at Ferguson and not at the fans. I think he did the wrong thing because I was his team-mate and I never said anything bad about him. He was saying that Ferguson was right when he said that I wasn’t worth £25m, when he was saying this and that . . . I always respected Neville.”

Tevez’ outburst will do little to dampen tension ahead of next week’s second leg after the English FA and Greater Manchester Police appealed for calm. Despite living in England for four years, Tevez speaks little English. His comments on Wednesday to the British media, accusing Neville of being “disrespectful”, were released through representatives.

In his native tongue, he made his feelings clear: “I was at lunch with the players in the team hotel and all the papers were laid out. I read them – well, ‘read them’, obviously I don’t read (English).

"My team-mates were asking what I thought. And I wondered to myself: what's the tarado(moron) talking about me for when I never said anything about him, when there was never any (issue) with us. It was a lack of respect for a companero(fellow footballer), aside of the fact that we had won a lot of things together."

• FAI chief executive John Delaney has disputed Richie Baker's version of events in relation to a meeting he attended with a number of Drogheda United players at the end of 2008, as reported earlier this week.

Baker said that “Delaney promised us it would never happen again but there you are a year later and there are all the problems at Derry, it’s always the same.”

However, Delaney, through the FAI communications department, yesterday denied that any such “promise” was made. Rather, he says, “assurances that stricter regulations would be brought in” were given, that these were followed up on and that the more recent problems at Derry arose because the directors of the club breached the rules in question.