England footballing legend Gary Lineker has insisted he will not be "bullied" into censoring himself on Twitter, after he deleted a message poking fun at Chloe Kelly's goal celebration during the European Championship final on Sunday. The Match of the Day presenter remained defiant over his "funny" tweets amid the "ludicrous" backlash over his comment after Kelly removed her shirt, exposing her sports bra, the Telegraph reports
Lineker had quipped "Kelly is England’s heroine, bra none”, but deleted the tweet after receiving crude replies, as well as complaints from users who had taken offence. The England veteran was accused of "casual sexism" after tweeting, and feminist campaigners branded the remark "misogynist".
But Lineker told Telegraph Sport: "It was ludicrous. But it was just a few people who, I think, weren’t watching the football match. So they’ve automatically thought I was making a sexist comment because women wear bras."
He said he removed the tweet as those not watching the game had "taken umbrage" and hadn't appreciated the context, adding: "So, therefore, I thought, ‘There’ll be other people like that, so I’ll take it down’. Because it doesn’t hurt to take anything down." He said he had shown the comment to feminist friends before posting, who had said: "Good joke. Absolutely fine."
Lineker said: "I’m not easily bullied. I think about my tweets all the time. That’s why I thought about that one. Because I thought it was quite funny. It was just a play on words, like I do all the time, in most of my tweets when I’m watching football matches.
"Because, actually, if you’re tweeting about football, if you just go, ‘So and so scored’, it’s quite dull. So I try to think of something amusing. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, not. Some people might like it. Some people won’t get it at all. Some people think that’s boring.
"But I just try to be different, which is what I do on TV. I try to do similar kinds of things and I’ve always done it. And I just think a few people just took it the wrong way. And I understand that. If I’ve got 8.5 million followers, every tweet I do, someone will have a pop."
Lineker was speaking at the launch of an Ofcom-commissioned report on Twitter abuse faced by Premier League footballers, which found seven in 10 top-flight stars received abuse in the first half of last season - with Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire the worst victims.
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