They're a branding exercise.
Anyone who saw Shawcross in his last season at Stoke or even Higuain in the final throes of his time at Juve could tell you that neither still had a body that was capable of playing a reasonable level of football. Kieran Gibbs is also there, and Makoun, once of Juve if anyone remembers him. I think Brek Shea might've played for Stoke as well at some point, he was definitely playing in the Championship anyway.
MLS is probably around the standard of The Championship now, which is pretty rapid in terms of rise, as it could have feasibly been compared to lower league one/league two only a couple of seasons ago.
Neville is clearly without much grey matter but an awful lot of arrogance to back that up, he did okay with the EWNT but they seemed to succeed in spite of him rather than because of him.