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Gary Lineker has topped the BBC’s highest-earning presenters once again, remaining unchanged at between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999.
This is the seventh consecutive year the Match of the Day anchor has topped the list and he continues to be the only star paid more than £1 million a year.
After quitting football, his presenting career began with the BBC where he has presented the flagship programme since the 1990s, as well as working for Al Jazeera Sports and NBC Sports Network.
With an reported overall net worth of £30million, he is one of the UK’s most notable sports figures and consistently presents at major tournaments including the Euros and the World Cup.
Over the course of his football career, he played for England 80 times and scored 49 goals before retiring in 1994 to enter the media world.
As well as presenting, he signed a £1.2million three-year deal with Walkers Crisps in 2020 and has established his own production company which produces podcasts that includes The Rest is History and The Rest is Politics.
While he has continued to top the BBC pay lists, his time at the broadcaster has not been without controversy, with the 63-year-old taken off air for three days in March 2023 over his criticism of the British government’s immigration policy on Twitter.
His salary has also been reduced since 2019 when he earnt 1.75m, after he took a voluntary pay cut of 23 per cent in 2020.
According to the latest figures, the BBC’s gender pay gap has increased for the third year in a row to its highest level since 2017.
The highest paid woman in the latest earnings list was Zoe Ball, presenter of the Radio 2 breakfast show, whose salary was between £950,000 and £954,999: down slightly from the previous year but enough to rank her second overall on the list.
The other three women in the top 10 on-air salaries are: Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce (£405,000-£409,999); DJ Lauren Laverne (£395,000-£399,999) and news presenter Naga Munchetty (£345,000-£349,999).
Coming third on the list of top earners was Huw Edwards, who was paid more than £475,000 last year despite being off air since July 2023.
The news presenter was taken off screen after allegations were made that he paid a young person for sexually explicit pictures, and he resigned from the corporation in April.
The BBC confirmed at the time of his departure that he had not received a pay-off and was leaving “on the basis of medical advice from his doctors”.
He had long been a fixture in the coverage of major political and royal events, announcing Queen Elizabeth II’s death on the BBC and presenting coverage of her funeral.
