Play the ball, not the man
Gary Lineker’s exit is a reminder that Match of the Day — and football — is a team sport
Michael Regan - The FA/The FA via Getty Images
- Caroline Frost
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Was it an excellent goal or bad goalkeeping? I couldn’t tell when Bournemouth scored against Liverpool on 11 March 2023, but neither could anybody else, because that was the day English sport all but stopped for Gary Lineker. After the footballer-turned-presenter was suspended from Match of the Day for a politically themed tweet, dozens of his fellow presenters, pundits and commentators shut up shop in support. The BBC was forced to air its flagship football show that Saturday night without its famous theme tune (does Lineker play the trumpet, too?) and it only ran to a fraction of the usual 80 minutes of guff and flannel.
It was a moment of extraordinary cultural impact, one that would have been unthinkable when Lineker first took his seat in the BBC sports studio as pundit sidekick to the peerless Des Lynam. Lynam recently recalled his attentive pupil to RT: “He wasn’t comfortable at the beginning. When he first came on, he wouldn’t criticise anybody.”
Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Ian Wright on Match of the Day. BBC / Pete Dadds
Lineker’s employer may be nostalgic for those early, quieter days when the former striker relied less on his rhetoric and more on his exceptional sporting record. World Cup glory (by modern English standards) included the Golden Boot for top scorer in Mexico 1986 and his concern for Paul Gascoigne’s tears at Italia 1990. Throw in an FA Cup win with Spurs, his fluent Spanish at Barcelona, a playing career completely free of yellow cards never mind a red, and it adds up to a pitch pedigree that he parlayed into a pleasant, self-deprecating TV style.
It's time for him to go. His salary galls in the face of cuts elsewhere
Later came the banter, hyping up the big matches while reminding us it’s all just a game. And he supported Leicester City long before it was cool. Lynam praised his successor’s “first-class” job and no one disputes that the role Lineker now prepares to vacate is one he has made his own.
In the same breath, there’s no doubt it’s time for him to go. As we saw with his suspension and the resulting fallout, the BBC is dancing on an ever smaller head of a pin trying to preserve its sole remaining superpower of impartiality while its highest-paid employee strains to flex his political muscles whenever he sees fit. His £1.35 million salary (which he can probably live without due to the success of his podcasting company, Goalhanger) galls in the face of BBC cuts everywhere else. Lineker reportedly has no problem chatting with fans for hours at a time – he says himself his BBC wage comes from those same people wanting selfies. Now that money can go somewhere else.
Gary Lineker and Des Lynam in 2009. Dave Hogan/Getty Images
Does it matter who replaces Lineker? Not really, as long as a) they’re paid a lot less and b) somebody does. I had to review that bizarre edition of the show in March 2023 for Radio 4 (very BBC!) and I had no idea what was happening on the pitch. It was only then I realised how much all that studio guff and flannel was essential to the viewing experience, not just being told whether it was a good goal or the other thing.
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Even in this age of on-tap content via dedicated club TV channels, live streaming and a million other football platforms, audience figures attest to fans’ enduring delight in a late-evening show offering highlights, analysis and confirmation of all their one-eyed prejudices. It’s the perfect programme in the perfect slot. When Lynam went to early-evening ITV, he didn’t take his audience with him. MOTD survived, and it will again.
Authors
Caroline Frost
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