Gary Lineker has accused the BBC of “moving the goalposts” regarding what he was allowed to post on social media.
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV festival, the former England footballer and ex-presenter of the BBC’s Match of the Day claimed he had been permitted to express what he termed his “humanitarian” views for two decades whilst working for the broadcaster, on the basis of his status as a sports journalist.
However, Lineker claimed that the BBC extended its political impartiality rules in 2019, which had previously only applied to staff who worked in news and current affairs, to “everyone”.
He noted that he had complained to the BBC director-general that the impartiality clause “wasn’t in my contract” but promised to be “cautious” before carrying on with his posting and sharing of refugee and humanitarian issues.
The BBC states in its editorial guidelines: “External activities and public expressions of opinion, including on social media, may affect perceptions of the BBC's impartiality as much as its output.” It also states: “Conflicts of interest can arise for anyone who works for the BBC in any capacity, however they are engaged.”
The former Spurs and Leicester City striker added that he had continued posting his views on social media despite the warning, concluding: “If I wanted a quiet and easy life I could have just shut up... but I’m an idiot.”
Lineker, who took over from Des Lynam as Match of the Day’s frontman in 1999 and was the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, stepped down from his role “by mutual agreement” last year amid backlash over another social media post he shared, which featured a clip of an academic condemning Zionism and an image of a rat, drawing allegations of antisemitism.
Lineker has insisted that he did not see the rat image and that he is not antisemitic but “anti-child killing,” and has condemned the October 7 attacks as “horrible”.
Addressing the post last month, he said that it was “self-harming” and that he was annoyed at himself for sharing it as it gave critics a “chance to have a pop” at him.
However, he had clashed with BBC bosses over social media activity several times previously.
For example, he was temporarily taken off air by the BBC in March 2023 following a post on his X account in which he compared the Conservative government’s asylum policy to the rhetoric of 1930s Germany.
Lineker now oversees his own media company as co-founder of Goalhanger Podcasts Ltd, which produces popular shows such as The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics and The Rest is Football, hosted by Lineker himself.
And he has continued to spark controversy due to his social media output. Earlier this week, he reposted a video of antizionist activist Tony Greenstein speaking outside court after he was cleared of inviting support for Hamas, in which the 72-year-old likened Zionism to Nazism.
Speaking at Edinburgh TV Festival, Lineker added: “I don’t really speak much about politics, but politics is involved in everything that I speak about.
“Ultimately, you need to live with yourself, and if I see things that upset me in humanitarian terms and I find it quite upsetting, it triggers me to use a platform I would have never had before. People can disagree, and they do, and that’s absolutely fine.”
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