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Neville was unhappy that sports giants like Nike might be treating racism like another marketing push

Neville said: "We have to make sure that the [anti-racism] campaign is conducted in the right manner and not just done for PR like some of the sport companies seem to be doing at the moment.

"The FA and the England team have always campaigned against racism very well, we have just got to be aware that it is not cheapened slightly by companies like Nike getting a lot of PR out of it for nothing."

The Nike-sponsored Holland team wore black-and-white shirts supplied by Nike as an anti-racist gesture in last night's friendly with England.

Neville's comments had an added edge given that his club has a £300m 10-year kit deal with Nike. England wore red Umbro shirts with "Say no to racism" on the front, tying in with the FA and Uefa's campaign.

A Nike spokesman said: "This is not a commercial campaign for Nike. The 'Stand Up Speak Up' campaign aims to raise money that will go directly to groups helping to tackle the problem."

He added that Nike started the pan-European campaign at the request of Thierry Henry, who has featured in TV ads created for the campaign by Wieden & Kennedy Amsterdam, along with Neville's Manchester United team-mate Rio Ferdinand.

It followed high-profile incidents last year of racism rearing its head as Henry and other black players in Arsenal's away matches in Europe in the Champions League faced abuse.

In October, Arsenal and French international Henry was referred to by Spain's national coach Luis Aragones as a "black shit" in a training session for Spain's players.

This was followed in November by widespread racial abuse directed towards England's black players by Spanish fans when the national team met Spain in a friendly in Madrid.

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