Gary Lineker has kept his blue tick amid Twitter's purge of individual's verification marks on Thursday night.
Lineker is a an active tweeter, sharing his thoughts with 8.9million followers every day. The Match of the Day host has successfully kept his blue tick as he is a subscriber to Twitter Blue, which users have to pay a monthly fee of £8 for.
The former Barcelona and Tottenham star has been a Twitter Blue subscriber for some time, revealing the news earlier this month. He tweeted: "I’ve actually been paying it for a while. Only for the ‘Edit’ button, but nevertheless."
Lineker's tweeting led to his suspension from the BBC after he made his opposition to the UK government's language around refugees clear. He briefly lost his blue tick after being put under review by Twitter.
He was quickly reinstated though and is now one of the few celebrities to keep his blue tick. Clicking on Lineker's tick reveals a information box which reads: "This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number."
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Twitter’s explanation of Twitter Blue states: “All Twitter Blue features will be available immediately except the blue checkmark, which will appear on eligible profiles after a review to ensure subscribed accounts meet all eligibility criteria.”
Twitter has been threatening the removal of ‘Legacy’ blue ticks for a while and finally acted as it continues its push to drive more people towards signing up for Twitter Blue. The legacy checkmarks began disappearing towards the end of Thursday.
Some of the biggest accounts losing their ticks include footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, cricketer Virat Kohli and former US president Donald Trump, as well as the official Twitter page for the Pope.
British comedian and presenter Richard Osman quote-tweeted the official post from Twitter Verified about the removal of the legacy verified checkmarks after losing his, writing: “Farewell blue tick, old friend. Don’t forget, always set your feed to ‘Following’ rather than ‘For You’.
“Then you’ll keep seeing the people you actually follow, and not people who’ve paid for attention.”
To add to the confusion, some legacy accounts seemed to retain their ticks if linked to a verified organisation, including Barack Obama’s personal page.
Twitter Verified Organisations enables bodies of “all types”, including businesses, non-profit groups and government institutions, to sign up and manage their verification and to affiliate and verify any related account.
But it costs a base price of £950 a month. One of the most famous profiles with a blue tick because it is “subscribed to Twitter Blue’ is Taylor Swift's, which has 92.5 million followers.
