Nobody underneath the age of 25 is aware of Match of the Day with out Gary Lineker.
The arrival of a brand new director of BBC Sport made this choice more and more inevitable as Alex Kay-Jelski is claimed to be shaking up how sport is roofed on air and on-line.
Picture:
Gary Lineker subsequent to the FA Cup trophy in January of this yr. Pic: PA
Few might have anticipated Lineker – the England scoring sensation – reinventing himself as a broadcasting establishment, and changing into the inheritor to Des Lynam from 1999.
Few actually might have anticipated his longevity on BBC One and the longevity of the soccer highlights format – with clips of video games obtainable on-line lengthy earlier than MOTD’s post-10pm kick-off.
There isn’t a doubting how achieved Lineker has turn into within the difficult stay TV setting.
However off-air conduct grew to become a rising supply of friction between the BBC hierarchy and its highest earner.
Selecting to make use of his social media platform to dish out political opinions demonstrated a social conscience.
However these posts – essential of the Conservatives and pro-Palestinian – despatched out to hundreds of thousands of followers appeared to battle with social media insurance policies at an organisation that sees itself as a bastion of political neutrality.
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Gary Lineker to go away BBC’s MOTD
In the end they sparked one of many greatest political furores in BBC historical past when a comparability of the Tory authorities’s asylum coverage with Nineteen Thirties Germany led to him being taken off air final yr.
And BBC colleagues walked out in solidarity.
Picture:
Presenter Gary Lineker and pundit Alan Shearer, returning to TV screens following Lineker’s row with the BBC over impartiality final yr. Pic: PA
He did not need to again down and scored a victory, permitting him to specific views on points so long as it didn’t cross into campaigning.
However his views on soccer additionally triggered concern with criticism of the England workforce going past something he would say on the BBC.
The expletive used about Three Lions performances at Euro 2024 got here on his personal The Relaxation Is Soccer podcast, producing weeks of protection selling the sideline.
However the sideline has developed into an enormous industrial success with podcasts from Goalhanger dominating the listening chart from politics to historical past and leisure, past his personal soccer exhibits.
The BBC might proceed to purchase in Goalhanger podcasts after Lineker presents his final World Cup for them in 2026.
And shortly a brand new era may solely know Lineker, not because the striker or BBC presenter, however because the podcasting millionaire.
