LAST UPDATE | 11 Mar 2023
THE BBC SPORTING schedule has been further disrupted as more presenters pull out of shows after Gary Lineker was told to step back from hosting Match Of The Day in a row over impartiality.
This morning, Alex Scott said she wouldn’t be hosting Football Focus at lunchtime as it “doesn’t feel right”.
The BBC has pulled Football Focus from its schedule, with Bargain Hunt now showing in its place.
Sports programming on BBC Scotland and BBC Wales has also been replaced or broadcast without presenters as the fallout continues.
Saturday’s Match of the Day was cut to 20 minutes and broadcast without match commentary or in-studio presentation. The BBC continuity announcer apologised for being unable to show the “normal Match of the Day.”
The show’s iconic theme music was not played, and consisted of a 20-minute highlights package of the day’s Premier League games without commentary, in-studio presentation, or post-match interviews.
Kelly Somers also confirmed she will not be presenting any BBC show today, after former England footballers and MOTD regulars Alan Shearer and Ian Wright announced they would be boycotting the programme in solidarity with Lineker.
Director General of the BBC, Tim Davie, has said that disruption to programmes hit by presenter boycott has been “a real blow” but he will not resign over the problem.
When asked if Lineker would have been removed if he had tweeted in support of UK government policy, Davie said ”I’m not going to go through all the hypotheticals of the past”.
Former BBC controller of editorial policy, Richard Ayre has told BBC Breakfast that the public may have already seen ” Gary presenting Match of the Day” for the last time.
Ayre said:
“It’s an irreconcilable position I think, between the BBC guidelines and Gary who, perfectly understandably, feels that he has a right as an individual to express his views.”
“The BBC takes a different view because its guidelines lay down particular rules for people who are really high profile BBC personalities and I don’t think it’s likely that in the coming days they are going to be reconciled,” Ayre stated.
“We may have already been the last time we’ve seen Gary presenting Match of The Day unfortunately.”
Yesterday evening several of the MOTD commentators shared a joint statement online, announcing they would also be stepping down from today’s broadcast.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said this afternoon that he could not understand the BBC’s decision to stand down Lineker.
“I’m not native but I cannot see why you would ask someone to step back for saying that”, said Klopp after Liverpool’s 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth. “I’m not sure if it is a language issue or not but that is the world we are living in.
“Everybody wants to be so concerned about doing things in the right manner, saying the right stuff. If you don’t do that then you create a s***storm, it is a really difficult world to live in.
“If I understand it right, it is a message, an opinion about human rights and that should be possible to say.”
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has weighed in on the controversy, stating:
“Gary Lineker was a great footballer and is a talented presenter. I hope that the current situation between Gary Lineker and the BBC can be resolved in a timely manner, but it is rightly a matter for them, not the Government.”
The BBC said today’s MOTD would be only 20 minutes long and “focus on match action without studio presentation or punditry”, saying it understood the position of its presenters.
Pundit Jermain Defoe said he is standing down from his slot on Sunday’s Match Of The Day 2, which the broadcaster had said would not be affected by the changes to today’s show.
BBC football presenter and former England player Scott wrote on Twitter:
“I made a decision last night that even though I love my show and we have had an incredible week winning an SJA for football focus that it doesn’t feel right for me to go ahead with the show today.
“Hopefully I will be back in the chair next week.”
Somers tweeted:
Just to confirm I won’t be on BBC television today.
Jason Mohammad – the presenter of BBC One show the Final Score – also announced this morning that he would not be presenting the show today.
“As you know, Final Score is a TV show very close to my heart,” Mohammad said on Twitter.
However – I have this morning informed the BBC that I will not be presenting the show this afternoon on BBC One.
The Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) said in a statement that players involved in today’s games will not be asked to participate in interviews with Match of the Day.
— Professional Footballers’ Association (@PFA) March 11, 2023
The Sports Journalists’ Association (SJA) has said it “fully supports” the freedom of speech of its members and expressed solidarity with Lineker.
Continued fallout
The high profile support for Lineker comes as the high profile presenter became embroiled in a row over impartiality after comparing the language used to launch a new Government asylum seeker policy with 1930s Germany on Twitter.
The broadcaster said it had “decided” Lineker would take a break from presenting the highlights programme until an “agreed and clear position” on his use of social media had been reached.
Greg Dyke, the BBC director-general between 2000 and 2004 and ex-FA chairman, said the broadcaster was “mistaken” in standing Lineker down. He said the broadcaster had “undermined its own credibility”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the precedent at the corporation is that “news and current affairs employees are expected to be impartial and not the rest”.
“If you start applying the rules of news and current affairs to everybody who works for the BBC, where does it end?”, he said.
He added:
“There is a long-established precedent in the BBC that is, that if you’re an entertainment presenter or you’re a football presenter, then you are not bound by those same (impartiality) rules.
“The real problem of today is that the BBC has undermined its own credibility by doing this because it looks like – the perception out there – is that the BBC has bowed to Government pressure.
And once the BBC does that, then you’re in real problems.
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