The hugely popular Match of the Day has been running since 1964 and is one of the BBC’s longest running programmes.
STT Sports,
SpongeBob Forsberg
13.11. 21:30•Updated 13.11. 21:32
Former captain of the England men’s national football team and top scorer of the 1986 World Cup Gary Lineker will leave his position at the British broadcasting company BBC’s traditional Match of the Day football magazine at the end of the current Premier League season.
The BBC confirmed on Tuesday that favorite presenter Lineker, who has been with the program since 1999, will no longer be involved after this season.
– We want to thank him for everything he has done for a program that reaches millions of viewers every week, BBC sports boss Alex Kay-Jelski told.
Lineker, who turns 64 at the end of November, will continue to work for the BBC in other positions, with his binoculars covering the 2026 World Cup competitions. With his annual salary of 1.35 million pounds, or about 1.6 million euros, Lineker has been the BBC’s most expensive presenter and is still working out the details of the contract covering the World Cup with his employer.
The hugely popular Match of the Day has been running since 1964 and is one of the BBC’s longest running programmes. Guinness World Records recognized it as the world’s longest-running football program in 2015. During the previous Premier League season, the program had a total of 33 million viewers.
Rumble and expose the surface
Lineker has ended up in the middle of various uproars in his media career. He compared the prime minister who pursued a strict immigration policy last year Rishi Sun too conservative government’s use of language to Nazi Germany. Lineker was shelved for a while and the BBC clarified the guidelines for its screen face on social media.
Lineker has also, for example, criticized Brexit, encouraged environmental activists and called the England national team “shit”.
Former BBC director and acted as Lineker’s supervisor when he started Greg Dyke could not say whether the end of Lineker’s job is due to his statements on social media.
– I think he was a sports presenter, and therefore his political views are not relevant when you think about his work performance, Dyke said in a BBC radio interview.
Dyke also speculated that the British Broadcasting Company, struggling with austerity pressures, might not be able to keep the highly paid Lineker.
Lineker is also remembered for his throwing. In December 2015, he threatened to host the first episode of the following season in his underwear if Leicester won the Premier League title. Leicester won and the presenter appeared in nothing but Leicester boxers.