The BBC Gary Lineker will temporarily leave his position in the program “The match of the day” following his controversial statements against the British government on its immigration policy, the radio-television station reported on Friday.
Lineker, 62, was heavily criticized for comparing in a tweet the language used by the conservative executive of Rishi Sunak when presenting his controversial bill against irregular immigration with the rhetoric of Nazi Germany.
Gary Lineker to step back from presenting Match of the Day until agreement reached on social media use – BBC statement https://t.co/WMsgqRzWrw
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) March 10, 2023
“The BBC has had extensive discussions with Gary and his team in recent days. We have said that we consider his recent activity on social media to be a breach of our guidelines” on impartiality, a BBC spokesman said.
And, he added: “The BBC has decided that it will stop presenting ‘The game of the day’ until we have a clear and agreed position on its use of social networks.”
The controversy was sparked by his response on Twitter, where he has 9 million followers, to a video in which the Interior Minister, the ultra-conservative Suella Braverman revealed plans on Tuesday to detain and remove people who arrive in the country irregularly, prevent them from claiming asylum and ban them for life from obtaining British nationality.
Good heavens, this is beyond awful. https://t.co/f0fTgWXBwp
— Gary Lineker ???????? (@GaryLineker) March 7, 2023
“There is not a large influx. We accept far fewer refugees than other major European countries,” Lineker wrote, quoted by the AFP news agency.
“This is just an immeasurably cruel policy aimed at the most vulnerable people in a language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s,” concluded one of the top scorers in English football history.
There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?
— Gary Lineker ???????? (@GaryLineker) March 7, 2023
Yesterday, Lineker said that he assumed his words and that he really wanted to present next Tuesday’s program, which he had done since 1999, five years after retiring from the fields.