Gary Lineker was unable to hide his tears after many of his Match of the Day colleagues opted to stand in solidarity with him and not appear in Saturday night’s scheduled episode.
That is according to Lineker’s eldest son George, who claims that the decisions – starting with pundits Ian Wright and Alan Shearer, who were scheduled to appear alongside Lineker on Saturday’s show – made the former England international striker emotional.
It comes after the BBC decided to suspend Gary Lineker, the popular host of the show, after the former striker described the UK government's new Migration Bill as "beyond awful" and that the language used was "not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s."
That ensured that Lineker would not appear on Saturday, but the corporation miscalculated the knock-on impact that such a decision would make. Wright and Shearer withdrawing from the programme preceded the entire commentary team, en mass, declaring that they would not be involved with Saturday’s show.
Due to the mass withdrawal of workers on the show, Saturday night’s Match of the Day programme was forced to be scaled back into a 20-minute highlights show without any presenter, pundits or commentators.
"To take him off the air for having a voice is harsh, and I think he was surprised, and a bit disappointed,” George explained.
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"Free speech is important and he shouldn't have been punished for that. But the reaction to all of this has been more than Dad ever thought it would be, and that just shows he did the right thing."
George is the eldest of Lineker’s four sons, alongside his brothers Harry, Tobias and Angus, who were in touch with him as the story unfolded in the past few days.
George told how his dad initially put on a brave face to his sons after he was axed from the show - sending them a thumbs up emoji. But he later broke down when he learned that Alan and Ian had all refused to step in, going on strike in support of him.
George continued, when explaining how the brothers had reached out to their dad after the news: "After it all kicked off, me and my brothers messaged him saying: 'We're proud of you' and he replied: 'Cheers boys' with a thumbs up emoji.
"Later he told us that he'd been so overwhelmed by the support. He wrote: 'Shearer and Wrighty backing down made me emotional, it means a lot to me.'
"I think he did cry when he found out about that. The support has been a positive thing to come out of this. I've been messaging him today, just saying: 'How are you doing Dad, how are you holding up?' And he replied: 'All good.'"
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