When I find Gary Lineker, nestled in a plump armchair in the back corner of a Soho basement, he looks remarkably fit, almost weightless. The footballer turned celebrated BBC Sport presenter has endured a rumbustious few weeks. Today, he is dapper in a mufti wardrobe of a stone grey knitted polo shirt and navy slacks, while those signature black-framed glasses perch on noticeably glassy skin. “It’s not too bad for an old person,” he quips, to my compliment. Lineker, it seems, has settled back into life off the front pages.
It is a world away from the man I might have met last month. With one death knell comment, he successfully fired himself into the epicentre of the impartiality row causing the BBC’s existential crisis. Having presented Match of the Day since 1999 following his 16-year football career, and boasting the public-funded broadcaster’s biggest annual salary of £1.35 million, he is — whether he likes it or not — one of its most recognisable faces. And while BBC chairman Tim Davie maintains that “extraordinarily high standards of impartiality across our content is vital”, Lineker slammed the Government. His March 7 tweet likened the Conservative Party to the Nazis, condemning Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s language (“invasion”, “rapists”, “criminals”) around the Government’s Rwanda asylum plans as “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.
Cue the chants: “Prince of woke!”, “Stick to football!”. Within three days, the BBC had pulled him off air. His BBC Sport colleagues including Ian Wright, Alan Shearer and Alex Scott walked out in solidarity, flooring programming, paparazzi mobbed his house, and his face was splashed up to wild applause on the backdrop of Fatboy Slim concerts. On March 13, Davie, then lacking a sports department, released a U-turn statement on behalf of the broadcaster, apologising for the “grey areas of the BBC’s social media guidance” and welcoming him back into the fold. It is a whirlwind that Lineker must be thankful has passed.
He rolls his eyes at the mention of the “bananas” debacle, before standing by his every word. “[The reaction] was very disproportionate from what I said. We’re all fellow human beings, and these poor people have come in fleeing countries where they’re being persecuted, where there’s war and famine,” he says. His deep, even gravelly, voice is laced with moral authority and unwavering confidence. “Of course, we can’t have everyone. No country can have everyone. But we can have our fair share, and we can show some empathy towards their dreadful plight.”
On reflection, he is content with how things turned out. “It was a victory for good,” he says. “It certainly wasn’t a deliberate effort to be any kind of spokesperson for anything. I was just making the point: let’s think about our language a bit here. And let’s be kind. You know, kindness seems to have gone out — everything is so divisive with this culture war nonsense. The bigger proportion of people in this country, and other countries, care. The people that shout the loudest are the ones that don’t.”
The dust might have settled but interest in the man remains strong. Headlines today are bountiful, if less life or death — whether he is embarrassed to be paying for his blue tick on Elon Musk’s Twitter, or his interviewing Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Reynolds, co-owner of Welsh football club Wrexham since November 2020. Mention of the latter sparks a laugh. “They’ve been slightly fortunate with some of the stories from the games,” he says.
On Saturday, Wrexham were promoted back to the Football League for the first time since 2008. “Ryan actually texted me after one of the games, because we swapped numbers and stuff,” Lineker says. “We’ve got mutual friends” follows quickly, as if to justify this name drop. “Obviously it’s done slightly for commercial reasons, but at the same time I think his heart’s absolutely in it. After all, that’s what football does. It grabs you, and then it’s always the hope that kills you.”
Today it is not his beloved sport but a fashion capsule collection that he is here to promote. For a second season, Lineker is presenting a line of Next garments for spring, and they are squeezed on rails around us: checked wool “Lineker’s Tailoring”, beige, faux suede biker jackets and striped T-shirts, all of which he found time to model himself. Why? “It’s a British company, from Leicester as well — like Walkers,” he says, letting slip his other hometown brand endorsement of nearly 30 years. “It’s a lot of fun, really. There’s a mixture of that in the edit,” he says, and stops himself again. “They call it an edit,” he says, rolling his eyes to reiterate that Gary Lineker is not a fashion person.
He does have to dress himself everyday, however. “I’ve never had a stylist, and we don’t get any wardrobe help at the BBC — we all have to provide our own clothes for the shows,” he says. “But I’ve always been really interested in clothes. I think most footballers are — we’re a vain bunch.” His appearance, I let him know, is impeccable. “It’s important because you’re in people’s households. I know it’s only on TV, but you’re with them,” the 62-year-old says. “Thankfully, I’ve managed to kind of keep a similar weight to when I played, which helps with wearing clothes.” Unsurprisingly, this has been no easy feat.
In fact, he is a follower of the controversial One Meal a Day diet, famously adopted by Coldplay’s Chris Martin. That, and intense exercise. “I work out really hard. I do at least three sessions in the gym every week, and then I’ll do Pilates as well,” he says. “And I only really eat one major meal a day. Breakfast I don’t eat, and then I’ll either pick in the evening if I’ve had lunch, or pick in the daytime, with nuts and fruits.” Not easy, he says, for a self-declared “big cook”, but he has the results to show for it.
It might be the reason we are here, but sartorial musings are by no means Linker’s métier. He is infinitely more fluent in talking about the serious stuff. Protests, from Extinction Rebellion to Just Stop Oil and Animal Rising, are sweeping the country and, like an angry parent protecting their misunderstood child, he launches to their defence. “It’s the only real form of protest that actually does work,” he says. “People get angry at these guys, and that’s what they want. That’s how it works. You can go back to the suffragettes who chained themselves to things — and it worked.”
He feels passionately about climate change. As part of his defence during the ruckus in March, he revealed it was one of two topics (the other being the refugee crisis) which he struck a deal with the BBC and Davie to continue posting about online, following the updated social media guidelines announced in 2020. “I’ve spent a lot of time with climate change scientists and I don’t think people understand where we are going. It is quite frightening,” he says. “In 50 years’ time, if [the protesters] get what they want, and they do stop the oil, people will look back and say these guys were heroes.”
His complete conviction of opinion might best be explained by his mindset on air, which he shrugs off as totally cool. “I don’t get nervous,” he says. “I don’t really ever get nervous about anything.” This is a trait he will have been grateful for as he packed up for Qatar last November, where he was again at the centre of BBC-related debate, leading its coverage of the controversial 2022 World Cup. “It was different,” he says, with a degree of oversimplification. He took his opening speech as an opportunity to flag the human rights issues in the Middle Eastern country, which was received with mixed support.
“There were all sorts of rights things about the homophobic nature of the country, and the way they treated the workers that built the stadiums,” he says. “That whole sportswashing thing is something. [But] every country has got issues with human rights. When we were Russia, they had already invaded Crimea. In Brazil there were massive demonstrations about wasting the money on stadiums.” How Qatar won the right to host the tournament riles him more. “The fact that the bid was corrupt — provenly so, with Fifa,” he says, adding “but there are positives that come out of it as well, and I think [things are] changing in that part of the world.” Qatar has always denied corruption in the bidding process and none has been proven.
There is much to be said for starting at home, too. Have prejudices thawed within the sport here? “Football is obviously a world where no-one’s come out yet. I mean, one or two have, but no Premier League players, for example. That will happen. Obviously, there will be a lot of footballers that are hiding their secret,” he says. After the 18-year-old Blackpool player Jake Daniels came out as gay in May 2022, there were hopes others would follow suit. Alas, anyone with that secret has kept it. “It seems ridiculous in this day and age that they feel the need to do that,” Lineker says. “I think football will be, like other sports, very accepting. When it happens, I’ll certainly be very supportive. But you will still get some. It’s very hard to change rotten people.”
That the boyish joy of football still courses through Lineker is a given, however. And there is much to get excited about, not least the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this summer. Talking about it feels as if the electricity has been switched back on. “England will be one of the favourites, they have to be. European champions!” he says.
Lineker is beaming. “It’s really good for the game, and really good for the sport,” he says of England’s female team. “And hopefully they can bring it home.” Then he catches himself. “But we won’t say that.”
