Gary Lineker: BBC axes football shows as presenters pull out and fallout deepens – live | BBC

We already knew that tonight’s MOTD would be aired without a presenter, pundits or commentators.

Now, it looks like Sunday’s episode could face similar problems.

Roger Mosey, a former head of BBC TV News, has said the Lineker row highlights how BBC chairman Richard Sharp has damaged the corporation’s credibility and called for him to stand down.

In January, the Sunday Times reported that, before being appointed to the job by former prime minister Boris Johnson, Sharp helped Johnson secure an £800,000.

The revelations have led to widespread questions about his suitability for the role.

Mosey, now the master of Selwyn College, Cambridge, wrote: “By removing Lineker from MOTD, it looks as if the BBC has given in to one side of the culture war.

“That is, of course, intensified by the presence on the BBC board of [government] appointees – most notably the chairman.

“So suggestions for now: Richard Sharp should go. He damages the BBC’s credibility.”

Mosey also called on the BBC to send senior executives out to be interviewed and explain how they intend to resolve the row, adding that Lineker should be allowed to stay on at Match of the Day and to work “within clear, agreed guidelines”.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has called on the BBC to “get serious” about ending the row surrounding Gary Lineker.

Speaking to reporters at an education conference in Birmingham, she said: “Fans will want to see [Match of the Day] tonight with all of the presenters and it’s not a situation that we should be in.”

She said she thought Lineker’s comments were “somewhat ill-advised” but that “what needs to happen now is the BBC to take a step back from all of this and to resolve it”.

Tom Peck, a columnist for the Independent, points out that Karren Brady, who appears as an adviser to Alan Sugar on BBC show The Apprentice, also sits as a Conservative member of the House of Lords.

Peck says Brady’s votes as a member of the chamber are “arguably of more consequence than a tweet”.

Lineker’s suspension was sparked by a tweet in which he said a government plan to effectively ban anyone who arrives in the UK illegally from claiming asylum had been expressed in “language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.

Commenting on Peck’s tweet, Guardian columnist Marina Hyde suggests that every time Brady “votes in favour of their legislation, government ministers should demand she is sacked by the BBC”.

Numerous commentators have also pointed out that Sugar has frequently been vocal about politics, including by endorsing the Conservatives at the 2019 general election.

Gary Lineker is on his way to the Leicester City ground to watch the team’s match against Chelsea, his son has confirmed.

Harry Lineker, 29, spoke to reporters as he left Lineker’s home in Barnes, south-west London to walk the dog.

“He has gone to Leicester to watch the game. He will be back this evening,” he said.

Lineker was born and grew up in Leicester and spent the first seven years of his professional career at the club.

The game is set to kick off at 3pm.

We reported earlier that Colin Murray’s comedy sports show Fighting Talk, which had been due to be broadcast on 5 Live at 11am, had been pulled from the schedule.

Murray has now tweeted saying: “In the interest of transparency, this was a decision taken by the entire FT team and myself.”

Guests on the show were due to be Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, Gail Emms, Reece Parkinson, and Bob Mills.

The show was replaced by a Chris Kamara podcast episode.

GB News has announced it will be airing an “alternative Match of the Day” from 10pm tonight.

The channel doesn’t have the rights needed to broadcast games or goal highlights, but presenter Mark Dolan said the show would offer “political-free” punditry as well as “still photography and as many clips as we can get our hands on”.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has spoken out in Gary Lineker’s defence

Speaking to the LBC, he said Lineker had a “perfect right to express an opinion”.

“Even within the BBC’s own code, they are allowed to express opinions of a partisan nature, providing it doesn’t impinge on their area of work. His area is sport.”

He also criticised the way the controversy had taken attention away from the asylum policy Lineker’s original tweet was commenting on.

“Unfortunately the whole debate now is shifting on to Gary and the BBC and ignoring the issue of this, I think, disgraceful piece of legislation that parliament’s about to debate on Monday,” he said.

Impartiality is a knotty old concept, and one of the trickiest things about it is that it relies on the idea that you can safely find the middle ground.

Witness the agonised attempts by the BBC and the Labour party to land on that sweet spot of unimpeachable banality after radical centrist firebrand Gary Lineker’s tweets became a rightwing media obsession this week.

Even if you think his comparison of Suella Braverman’s rhetoric to that emanating from Germany in the 1930s is excessive, it is obviously the product of a moral clarity that has eluded the actual opposition.

Read the full piece from Archie Bland here:

Former Labour No 10 spin doctor Alastair Campbell has weighed in strongly in favour of Gary Lineker’s right to express his views on his private social media accounts in an interview with LBC this morning.

When asked if the number of followers Lineker commands on Twitter should make him more cautious, Campbell hit back arguing that the issue is a matter of principle, querying if other high-profile BBC presenters like David Attenborough and Brian Cox could also be suspended for expressing their personal views on their platforms.

 

BBC has pulled its Radio 5 Live Sport coverage, saying there has been a change of schedule.

The station is currently playing old football podcasts.