After political tweet
The BBC ousts Gary Lineker – and nearly all sports presenters go on strike
Gary Lineker leaves his home in London on Saturday. Instead of moderating his program on the BBC in the evening, he watches the Chelsea FC game live.
© James Manning/DPA
BBC’s removal of Gary Lineker sets off an earthquake. Numerous moderators show solidarity with the sports moderator and refuse to work for the broadcaster. But the BBC is not only criticized for the dismissal.
“Football is a simple game: 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes, and in the end the Germans always win” – Gary Lineker’s quote after England’s defeat at the 1990 World Cup against eventual world champions Germany still enjoys 32 years later cult status. While the DFB team gambled away this status at the last two World Cups, things are going haywire in English football as well. The main character in a drama that has dire consequences for the BBC: Gary Lineker.
After retiring, the British star striker became something of a BBC figurehead. The now 52-year-old has been presenting the football show “Match of the Day” since 1999. The British counterpart to the sports show is an institution on the island. For 59 years, the program has shown highlights from the top British league and cup competitions, but this weekend there is a novelty: there is no moderator for the program. On Friday evening, the BBC announced that Gary Lineker had been removed from the broadcaster’s moderation for the time being.
Gary Lineker tweet outraged BBC
The reason for this was a statement by the moderator, which the broadcaster rated as a “violation of our guidelines”. Lineker sharply criticized the rhetoric of the tightened migration policy under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Interior Minister Suella Bravermann on Tuesday. The language used by the conservative government to advertise its controversial asylum legislation is “not dissimilar to Germany in the 1930s,” Lineker wrote on Twitter, triggering a storm of indignation among the government and conservative politicians.
Three days after the tweet, the BBC responded on Friday, sparking another wave of protests – but this time from its own presenters and football clubs across the country. Ian Wright, Lineker’s co-host, tweeted after the decision that while he loves hosting Match of the Day, in solidarity with Lineker he will not be hosting the show on Saturday. The tweet was the “perfect distraction” for the government, Wright speculated on the podcast “Wrighty’s House”. “He put out a tweet criticizing the government for everything that’s going on like the human rights issues. For the government, this tweet is the perfect distraction as it has become the new headline in the media,” he said Wright and also criticized the government around Prime Minister Sunak: “They simply have no empathy. Those who are most vulnerable are always the ones who have to suffer. And that starts with words.” Wright previously announced on the podcast, which was released ahead of the BBC’s announcement, that he would stop hosting if Lineker were removed. “Gary should be able to say what he wants to say on his platforms,” Wright said.
Sports moderators show solidarity
A real earthquake followed on Saturday: Several presenters of the live football broadcasts on BBC Radio announced that they would not be presenting today out of protest and solidarity with Lineker, and at noon the BBC removed the live broadcasts from the program. And the broadcaster was also forced to make further changes on television. With “Football Focus” and “Final Score”, the BBC had to remove two more programs from the program at noon at short notice after the moderators Alex Scott and Jason Mohammad refused to moderate.
But the wave of protests now goes far beyond the broadcaster. Jeremy Corbyn, longtime leader of the Labor Party, also defended Lineker, complaining that the debate had drifted away and was no longer focused on “this disgraceful legislation that is due to be passed on Monday”. Outgoing Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that although she would like to defend the BBC as a public broadcaster, the decision against Lineker was unacceptable. The English footballers’ union PFA said on Saturday it supports players who no longer want to be interviewed for the BBC programmes. Third division club Bristol Rovers meanwhile announced a boycott of the interviews with the BBC directly on Twitter.
Roger Mosey’s criticism was also sharp. The longtime head of the BBC news department explained in several tweetsthat while Lineker did break the guidelines, the BBC has rarely sanctioned such violations in recent years. “With Lineker removed as presenter, it gives the impression that the BBC is giving up on one side of the Kulturkampf,” Mosey said. This impression is also intensified by the occupation of the chairman. Richard Sharp, a supporter of Prime Minister Sunak’s Tory party, must go, Mosey said: “He has damaged the BBC’s credibility.”
The BBC is currently not only criticized for Lineker. Already on Friday reported the “Guardians“That a nature documentary by filmmaker Richard Attenborough was also canceled, it is only available digitally. Because it was about the destruction of nature, a counterattack by Tory politicians and the right-wing press was feared, the newspaper reports. Recently, several British media also reported BBC leader Richard Sharp’s connections du den Tories, including helping then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson secure an £800,000 loan before he was appointed to the presidency in 2021.