Gary Neville has criticized Manchester United’s treatment of Bastian Schweinsteiger as “illegal” after the former Germany international revealed he was sent to train with the club’s under-16 team in the summer of 2016.
The 39-year-old has spent two seasons at Old Trafford after signing a three-year contract from Bayern Munich for a bargain price of £6.8m.
The playmaker was part of manager Louis van Gaal’s plans but after he was sacked and replaced by Jose Mourinho, Schweinsteiger was banned from first team training after returning from the European Championship in August 2016 as Mourinho assembled the core squad ahead of the new team. season.
United were on the brink of signing Paul Pogba for a world record £89m, Mourinho instructed the club to offer Michael Carrick a new contract, assured Marouane Fellaini he would not be sold and also had Ander Herrera and Morgan Schneiderlin in midfield .
Schweinsteiger, who injured his knee in the FA Cup third round win against Sheffield United on January 9, made only four substitute appearances in the 2015–16 season, traveling to Dubai, Miami and Stuttgart to watch his partner, tennis player Ana Ivanovic.
The German’s jet-setting irritated senior members of the United dressing room; Mourinho realized this as he prepared to replace Van Gaal. Schweinsteiger was suspended from United’s first-team dressing room and spent the summer of 2016 training with the club’s youth teams before being sold to Major League Soccer side Chicago Fire in March 2017.
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Schweinsteiger returned to United team training in late October and Mourinho publicly admitted he regretted his treatment of the World Cup winner.
Recalling the end of his time at United, Schweinsteiger revealed how he initially thought he was being played a cruel joke when he was told to train with the club’s under-16 team.
“It was 2016 and I was in the German national team, we went very far in the competition [Euros] I reached the semi-finals, so I came into play a little later [at United] and the team was in the United States for a preseason tour,” Schweinsteiger said.
“When I came on the first day I trained with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and I thought it was great, he has vision and is a great player to play with.
“The next day, on my birthday, when I walked into Carrington, John Murtough was there and said I wasn’t allowed in the dressing room, which is what the coach said. No warning, no nothing. I don’t know if anyone could have told me there. [on my first day of training] Or he told me normally but okay, I went to the youth dressing room and trained with the under-16 players.
“Yes completely [kicked me out of the first team dressing room]so I had to ask him [Murtough] Bring me my boots and training gear. I asked who I was training with and he said it was the under-16 team, so I went and trained with the under-16 team.
“I asked him if I could speak to the manager in the afternoon, so when I came back from training with the under-16s, I was training very badly because I didn’t know what was going on or that it was a joke. “We met with Jose Mourinho in the afternoon.
“He told me that he didn’t see me happy at United because when I had my injury I was rehabbing with German doctors, spending time in Germany. Of course I came back to United and was in contact with the doctors and watched the matches – I spoke to Louis van Gaal when he was the coach and he told me about it at the weekends.” He came to United and told me to stay in touch with the doctors, they needed me to be fit and there was an FA Cup final which I almost did.
“That was our agreement and I stuck to it. For me, I just wanted to be healthy and be able to play; I stuck to the agreement with Louis van Gaal but obviously the board had a slightly different view on that.
“It was just me [that got moved to the youth dressing room]. After that, I trained alone with a fitness trainer for at least three months. I received training before and after. [first] set. NO [Jose never let me train with the first team]I think they wanted to get rid of me.
“At that moment I was still very happy at United, I loved wearing the jersey, I loved it. I was thinking maybe it was just a phase, now I will train and keep myself fit and maybe one day they can do that too. My dream was always to come back to Old Trafford.”
Schweinsteiger would return to Mourinho’s plans at Old Trafford later that season – albeit briefly – and feature in League Cup, FA Cup and Europa League ties at the start of 2017 before making the switch to MLS in March.
But Neville was stunned by Schweinsteiger’s accusations and admitted that, as a former representative of the Professional Footballers’ Association, United could face legal consequences.
“That’s illegal,” Neville replied. “I was a PFA Union Representative and you are not allowed to do that, you cannot dismiss someone like that, it is a constructive dismissal in some ways.
“It’s probably a few years too late, you should have come and seen me then. I was stunned and embarrassed by what I heard because I always think that players leave clubs and people disperse, but there is a way.” a way of doing things and behaving and acting.