Gary Lineker has admitted feeling “slightly comfortable” with the way the BBC covered the 2018 World Cup and believes Russia successfully “sportswashed” their image through the tournament.
Lineker made a splash by beginning the BBC ’s coverage of the Qatar World Cup with a monologue addressing the host nation’s human rights record and treatment of LGBTQ+ people. Rather than showing the opening ceremony, the BBC decided to focus instead on allegations of corruption surrounding Qatar’s successful bid and its treatment of migrant workers.
Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup during the same vote as Qatar back in December 2010, which has since seen 17 of the 22 FIFA executive committee members banned or indicted over allegations of corruption and wrongdoing. The country also faced calls to be stripped of the competition following its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
However, the BBC covered the 2018 World Cup in a straightforward manner, choosing to focus on the football, rather than political issues surrounding Russia. Lineker has defended the broadcaster’s editorial stance on Qatar, which he believes has been informed by mistakes in the past.
“I think we were sportswashed four years ago when it was in Russia,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Media Show. “We were all going on about how great it was and this, that and the other. That’s how sportswashing works – we perhaps didn’t talk enough about the other issues, so it was deemed the right thing to do.”
Lineker was then asked whether the BBC’s coverage of the opening of the World Cup on Sunday was directly influenced by the acknowledgement of mistakes in Russia. “Yes, I think we learned a lesson from what we probably felt was a mistake,” he said.
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“I think the World Cup there, the streets were sanitised, everything was different. We’ve seen what Putin’s done subsequently. But he’d done it before and I think, looking back with hindsight, we probably should have spoken out more.
“I don’t have any feeling of a mistake with what we’ve done at the moment, because of what we’ve done. But I do look back four years ago and feel slightly uncomfortable.”
Speaking in an interview before the tournament, Lineker tried to explain why he would travel to Qatar to cover the World Cup, in spite of the host country’s poor human rights record.
“I’m a little queasy about it,” he said. “The human rights, the deaths building the stadiums, the homophobia in their laws, none of it sits right. What separates this one from the others is we know it’s corrupt, it has now been proven. Most of the FIFA committee are either in jail, have been banned from football or fined.”
He added: “We’re going there to broadcast it – journalists are going too but we’re there to report on it not support it. We’re not cheerleaders for it and that’s an important thing.”
