Gary Lineker has described his impartiality row with the BBC over a tweet about immigration as a “lovers’ tiff”, saying he and the broadcaster had been “together a long time”.
Last March the Match of the Day (MotD) presenter was taken off air for breaching impartiality guidelines after hecriticised the government’s asylum policy on Twitter, now called X, but he was reinstated after some of his colleagues pulled out of shows in solidarity.
Speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild (BPG) lunch on Tuesday, Lineker said he had moved on from the row: “Let’s call it a lovers’ tiff. We’ve been together a long time and these things happen. I think it was a little bit unfortunate, but we’re all fine now.”
When asked if he would go into X “purdah” before the general election – when BBC impartiality guidelines for presenters become stricter – Lineker said: “I am anyway … not because of anything to do with the BBC … I’ve always tried to tweet sensibly and am not a tribal person. I just look at what is right and what is wrong.
“Obviously [X has] always been a bit of a cesspit but it’s just become increasingly toxic. You can’t have a nuanced conversation on there any more so I’ve stepped away from that side of things … I don’t enjoy the experience now.”
Last week Lineker told the Guardian he had received threats after he retweeted, then deleted, a post by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel that called for Israel to be banned from international sporting events, including football.
He explained to the BPG why he removed his tweet. “The BBC didn’t contact me because I wasn’t in breach of the guidelines … I took it down because people were … reading into it that that was my view, but it wasn’t my view. I retweeted José Mourinho had been sacked by Roma. Does that mean I wanted him sacked by Roma? Of course not.”
The presenter said it had “been good for me” to spend less time on X, and more time reading and listening to podcasts. He said he would continue to tweet about shows as it was a “useful platform” and the BBC liked him doing that.
He denied feeling “constrained” by the BBC’s guidelines and defended it against accusations of bias.
He said people brought their own political bias to the corporation’s coverage, comparing it with when MotD gets complaints from people about where their teams feature on the show.
“No one ever complains about someone else’s team and where they are in the running order. The truth is they’ll claim there’s a bias against their team … therefore the bias is theirs … It’s the same in politics.”
He also compared people’s views on impartiality with football’s video assistant referee system, saying one week people “set a high bar” on impartiality but “the next week a lower bar, and they’ll always be adjusting”, but we “do our absolute best”.
Having become a media mogul himself as the co-founder of Goalhanger – it has 11 podcasts that had 28m downloads last month, including the successful The Rest Is … franchise, and is looking to move more into the US market – Lineker was asked if he would renew his MotD contract: “I don’t know. I’ve still got almost two years left on my contract so it’s too early to contemplate that at the moment. I love doing MotD.”
