PLAYERS and managers will not receive interview requests from Match of the Day due to the ongoing row over Gary Lineker's tweets, according to the Premier League.
After a Downing Street spokesperson described Lineker’s tweets – in which compared the Home Office’s latest policy on asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats to those of Germany in the 1930’s – as “unacceptable”, the BBC pulled the broadcaster from the Match of the Day presenter’s chair.
While they initially claimed that Lineker would be “spoken to”, the corporation then released a statement which said it had been decided that the ex-footballer would “step back from presenting Match of the Day until we’ve got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media.”
However, in response pundits Ian Wright and Alan Shearer said they would not be appearing on the programme in solidarity with Lineker.
The show’s regular commentators joined the boycott soon after, saying it would not be “appropriate” for them to work given the situation.
Players and managers also signalled their unwillingness to be interviewed by the programme over the weekend.
According to the BBC, the Premier League has now told the 12 clubs set to play on Saturday that neither players or managers would receive requests for Match of the Day interviews.
Furthermore, Greg Dyke, who served as BBC director general between 2000 and 2004, has said its decision to take Lineker off the air was “mistaken”.
He told BBC Radio 4: “I think what the BBC did yesterday was mistaken.
“Over the years since I left the BBC I’ve never gone public criticising the leadership of the BBC, because I know what a difficult job it is.
“But it seems to me that the precedent in the BBC is that news and current affairs employees are expected to be impartial – and not the rest.
“And in this case, Gary Lineker is a much-loved football presenter. And if you start applying the rules of news and current affairs to everybody who works on the BBC, where does it end?
“Does it end with Tess Daly on Strictly? Or Alan Sugar on The Apprentice? Or even David Attenborough, are they not allowed to say things?”
The BBC has said that tonight’s programme will focus on “match action without studio presentation or punditry”.
A spokesman for the Professional Footballers’ Association said: “We have been informed that players involved in today’s games will not be asked to participate in interviews with Match Of The Day.
“The PFA have been speaking to members who wanted to take a collective position and to be able to show their support for those who have chosen not to be part of tonight’s programme.
“During those conversations we made clear that, as their union, we would support all members who might face consequences for choosing not to complete their broadcast commitments.
“This is a common sense decision that ensures players won’t now be put in that position.”
