Match of the Day host Gary Lineker sticks by his tweet following the row with BBC bosses that saw him stripped from screens.
The former Barcelona and Everton striker gave his response to the government’s new asylum policy with a series of tweets, one of which read, "Good heavens, this is beyond awful." He later shared, "This is just an immeasurably cruel policy". He has now stuck by those comments in an interview with Men's Health UK.
He then continued his criticism by claiming the government used language that was "not dissimilar to that used by Germany in 1930s". Those tweets sparked a huge row with his employers the BBC, with many claiming that Lineker had gone against the channel’s impartiality rules.
He was as a result taken from screens, with the likes of Match of the Day, Final Score and Football Focus all being affected as his punditry colleagues such as Ian Wright, Alex Scott and many more pulled out of their broadcasting commitments in a show of solidarity. A resolution was eventually found which allowed Lineker to return to work.
However, in a fresh interview with Men’s Health Magazine, Lineker appears to be sticking by his original response. He said: “When I sent that tweet, it honestly never even crossed my mind that it would lead to where it went.
“I've worked with refugees' charities for years. So, when I saw the Suella Braverman film, I said I thought it was pretty awful.
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“Then the 'stick to football' people weighed in and I replied to one of them, just saying there was no massive influx, the UK takes far fewer refugees than other European countries, this is a cruel policy, and the language used in the debate reminds us of the debate in Germany in the 1930s. I think that is factually accurate.”
Lineker further explained his original tweet and rejected the prospect that he called anyone in charge a Nazi. He added: “I talked about the use of words like ‘invasion’ and ‘swarms’ and ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists’, which I think we should be very careful about because it has real-life consequences.
“I wasn’t abusive, I wasn’t saying she [Braverman] was a Nazi.”
Whilst Lineker has returned to work, he has interestingly not yet featured on Match of the Day since his argument with the BBC subsided. He was previously replaced due to his prior commitments on the channel’s FA Cup coverage before the international break paused domestic action.
It was thought that he would return last weekend only to be missing once again. However, that was not down to another suspension. Instead, Lineker revealed that he was on a pre-organised holiday.
He wrote on Twitter, “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, I won’t be doing @BBCMOTD [Match of the Day] tonight. I’m not suspended, just on holiday. Back next week,” with a laughing emoji and a thumbs up.
‘Gary Lineker was speaking to Men’s Health UK ‘Talking Heads’ columnist, Alastair Campbell, in an interview available on the magazine’s website now’
