Gary Lineker has admitted he watched the Match of the Day episode for which he was dropped by BBC Sport and opened up on being reduced to tears by the show of solidarity from colleagues.
In March, the BBC decided to suspend Lineker, the popular host of the Saturday football flagship show, after the former striker described the UK government's new Migration Bill as "beyond awful" and that the language used was "not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s."
Amid the fallout, many of Lineker’s Match of the Day colleagues opted to stand in solidarity with him. Pundit Wright tweeted to state that he would not be appearing on that weekend's Match of the Day if there were to be no Lineker, with Shearer then following suit. That sparked a mass walkout of workers on the programme.
Due to the mass withdrawal of workers on the show, including the commentators, that Match of the Day programme was forced to be scaled back into a farcical 20-minute highlights show without any presenter, pundits or commentators.
Speaking to the Guardian, Lineker has admitted to being intrigued by how the BBC would show the programme without any of its normal workers. He believes the ratings did go up, but only for the opening two minutes out of curiosity, before everyone switched off.
“I put it on too,” Lineker confessed. “I didn’t know they weren’t even going to play the (theme) music, but everyone had been massively supportive. It was an amazing few days, genuinely moving. A bit overwhelming. It started with Ian Wright pulling out, then 20 minutes later Alan Shearer did the same – it might have been slightly harder for him – and it was ‘wow, wow’.”
The popular host spoke openly and emotionally about the support of his colleagues. Lineker explained he had let the pundits know in a WhatsApp group that he had a bad feeling he would be taken off the air as he did not believe the BBC would stand down, and while he received internal support in that chat - that also played out in public.
He added: “I know he (Wright) has strong convictions but when he actually tweeted it, I was like: pfff…Then Alan did it. I cried. I genuinely cried. I was in the back of a taxi in tears, moved. I was very emotional. I told them I could never thank them enough.”
Having been quickly reinstated by the BBC, Lineker returned to the screen for the corporation’s football coverage the following weekend.
