Status: 03/11/2023 3:57 p.m
Moderator Gary Lineker has been suspended from the British broadcaster BBC after a tweet critical of the government. Solidarity with the former footballer is huge.
Match of the Day is an institution on British television. Since 1964, the BBC has shown summaries of football matches from England’s top division. The moderator then analyzes the games together with experts.
The show will also be available on Saturday (March 11, 2023) at 10:20 p.m. local time on BBC One. But everything will be very different than usual, because a moderator, experts and even your own commentators will be missing.
Topic makes headlines in the UK
The reason is that Gary Lineker has been provisionally suspended from the BBC after a tweet critical of the government and his refusal to apologize for it. There is approval for this decision, but also a lot of criticism. The topic is so important in Great Britain that the reputable newspaper “Guardian” opened with it on Saturday (03/11/2023).
Gary Lineker, 62 and one of the best English footballers in history, uses Twitter extensively. He is humorous and opinionated, even on political issues. On Tuesday (March 7th, 2023) he wrote the tweet in which he harshly criticized the conservative British government’s plans for asylum policy.
“Immeasurably Cruel”
According to Lineker, the plans to make it more difficult for refugees to enter Great Britain are “immeasurably cruel”. The language used by the government in defending its plans is also similar to that used by Nazis in Germany.
Lineker, who has presented “Match of the Day” since 1999 but also works for other media, was then confronted by the public broadcaster BBC. A spokesman said: “The BBC have had extensive discussions with Gary and his team over the past few days. We have said we view his recent social media activity as a breach of our policies.”
Had he apologized, Lineker would presumably be presenting the show on March 11th. But he stood by his statement and was therefore suspended on Friday until further notice.
Experts and commentators cancel the BBC
Since then there has been a wave of solidarity. Ian Wright and Alan Shearer, both also former England internationals, told the BBC they are unavailable for the programme.
In a joint statement, commentators scheduled for Saturday’s six Premier League games said they were also unavailable.
Solidarity also from footballers
According to the England Players’ Union, there have been inquiries from professionals about backing them if they refuse to give the BBC contracted post-match interviews. The union assured this.
The BBC meanwhile announced that “Match of the Day” will be broadcast without a presenter and experts. Instead, “the focus should be on the football games”.
However, other BBC programs were canceled because other colleagues showed solidarity with Lineker. So the popular “Radio 5 live” was forced to replace its current football program.
Source: sportschau.de