BBC Sport host Gary Lineker said this week he’s received threats after retweeting a pro-Palestinian account that called for Israel to be banned from international sporting events.
Lineker deleted his post, but not before it drew attention on X (formerly Twitter), where the Match of the Day host has come under fire before for politically motivated tweets. Those tweets have posed a problem for Lineker with the BBC, which requires employees to remain impartial on political matters.
In an interview with The Guardian, Lineker defended his retweet of the post by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. He called the widespread debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “so toxic.”
“If you lean to one side or the other, the levels of attack are extraordinary,” Lineker said. “How could it be controversial to want peace? I just don’t understand it. You don’t need to be Islamophobic to condemn Hamas, or antisemitic to condemn Israel. But at the moment it’s just awful. Awful.”
While Lineker confirmed he’s received threats for his retweet, he said, “But it’s not about me. I am not the victim here.”
As noted, it’s not the first time Lineker’s posts have stirred controversy. In March 2023, the BBC requested he “step away” from his Match of the Day role after he voiced support on social media for refugees and criticized a British migration bill. Some of Lineker’s BBC colleagues walked out in protest, forcing the network to cancel many sports broadcasts that weekend.
The BBC struck a deal to reinstate the host.
Lineker, 63, also told The Guardian he feels the media is out to get him, that they are “weirdly, oddly obsessed with trying to do me.”
“Trying to like, put me away,” he continued. “They take everything out of context. Deliberately. It’s almost like a game for them to try to destroy me in some way. It’s very odd.”
Lineker’s outspoken nature has drawn criticism beyond the media. Lee Kern, a screenwriter whose credits include the 2020 film Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, got blocked, then unblocked by Lineker on X Saturday. Kern wrote, “I note I’ve been blocked by Gary Lineker, so let’s just be crystal clear on one thing: Gary Lineker has profiteered from human misery more than nearly every single one of us on this app. He received millions from Qatar for his World Cup coverage. … (a reference to Qatar’s use of the soccer tournament to “sportswash” human rights abuses).
“So please be mindful that Gary Lineker is a vanity moralist. A rich poseur. A hypocrite and a fraud, one might say.”
After unblocking Kern, Lineker responded with an attack on Kern’s original tweet.
“I’ve temporarily unblocked you to let you know that your tweet is libelous,” Lineker wrote. “I didn’t take a penny, a pound, a Riyal, or anything else from Qatar for the World Cup. I worked for the BBC and the BBC alone. I suggest you delete your inflammatory lies immediately.
I’ve temporarily unblocked you to let you know that your tweet is libellous. I didn’t take a penny, a pound, a Riyal, or anything else from Qatar for the World Cup. I worked for the BBC and the BBC alone. I suggest you delete your inflammatory lies immediately.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) January 20, 2024
Earlier this week, Lineker added a ‘retweets are not endorsements’ disclaimer to his X profile. We’ll see if that legalese is enough to keep him in the good graces of his employer.
[TheGuardian.com, Image: BBC]
