Gary Lineker thought he had hosted his last 'Match of the Day' after he was asked to step back from the show in a row over impartiality, but still insists his view was "factually accurate".
Gary Lineker thought he had hosted his last Match of the Day after he was asked to step back from the show in a row over impartiality last month
The 62-year-old former footballer-turned-TV presenter tweeted criticism of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s policy on refugees - prompting a mass walk out of BBC pundits and presenters who stood by him last month - before returning to presenting duties a week later, and he got emotional when his co-stars Alan Shearer and Ian Wright told the BBC they wouldn't appear on 'Match of the Day' without him.
Asked whether he thought he’d presented his last 'Match of the Day' at the time, he told Men’s Health UK: "I guess I must have, because when they said I had ‘stepped back’ and the row was raging, it was hard to see how it got resolved unless they backed down.
"And I think the key moment was when the other presenters and then the commentators made it clear they wouldn’t go on if I was taken off air. I really found that incredibly moving.
"I had a tear in my eye when I heard Wrighty and Alan Shearer had pulled out. Ian had told me he would do it, but it is one thing to say it, another to do it.
"Then one by one the others pulled out, and even some of the players and managers said they wouldn’t do interviews.
"To be fair to Tim Davie, he admitted they had got it wrong and sorted it out. I love the BBC and I was very glad to be back on air and talking about football again."
The controversial tweet on March 7th came in response to a video message by home secretary Suella Braverman announcing her new Illegal Migration Bill, and in the video, she spoke about stopping people making "illegal journeys" crossing the Channel in boats.
Gary's tweet read: "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?"
A month later, the star insists what he said was "factually accurate".
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. 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."
But Gary claims he previously agreed with the BBC that he would "not stop occasionally tweeting" about climate change and refugees.
He added: "When the new social media guidelines were brought in, I said fine, but we agreed I would not stop occasionally tweeting about two issues in particular: climate change and refugees.
"I wasn’t prepared to back down on that, especially as I felt and still feel that what I tweeted was fair and true. I wasn’t abusive, I wasn’t saying she [Suella Braverman] was a Nazi. 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."
Gary Lineker was speaking to Men’s Health UK ‘Talking Heads’ columnist, Alastair Campbell, in an interview available on the magazine’s website now http://www.menshealth.com/uk/mental-strength/a43505139/gary-lineker-alastair-campbell/
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