Lineker off MoTD - mod note in OP

Ian Wright has said he isn't going to do MOTD tomorrow over this.

I'm gonna lose a lot of respect for whomever does step in to do it.

The best news ever.

Hopefully thats the end of Lineker with his woeful puns and fake virtue signalling.

Ian Wright is no loss either, he is a dreadful pundit.

This is the straw that broke the camels back, Lineker has been outspoken for months on Twitter and rubbing too many people up the wrong way.

Mark Chapman is a much better presenter than Lineker, he should get the job.

Knowing the BBC though they will probably give it to Jermaine Jenas 😞

Great stuff.

If they just showed 10 minutes highlights of each game and no analysis it would be a damn sight better than the current product.

I usually watch the program on timeshift and fast forward through the analysis.

Stopped watching motd once sky started uploading match highlights on youtube. Can't imagine it was the ratings puller it used to be for the beeb. The cynic in me can't help but wonder if they are pulling a stroke here in order to lighten the wage bill.

If I was paying a lad €1.5m a year to be the face of an entertainment show, I'd feel quite within my rights to ask him to shut the **** up about divisive political issues.

If Lineker wants to be a social justice warrior then let him run off and do it on his own dime. The problem with these types is that they want it both ways, they want the money, the handy job, and yet still be able to say whatever they want.

MOTD will end up in the place as Top of the pops anyway, this will probably just hasten that demise, good luck Lineker getting anybody else to give him that sort of salary for his non entity presenting.

No, I reckon the people PAYING the high value contract should be allowed to have a say on what is associated with it. Which is not the same thing.

If they don't want their presenters getting involved in political discourse, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Frankly it is perfectly normal in a lot of industries, the expectation is that you don't do a damn thing that affects the company image.

Nobody is stopping these lads having an opinion, they are welcome to their opinions. They have the right to free speech. And the BBC have the right to decide they don't want their presenters getting involved in Twitter squabbles.

He will go off to ITV, BeIn or perhaps be the face of TNT when it launches and probably at least double what the BBC were paying. Its win win for him.

You would hope he would be telling fellow pundits to do the show and that its his own battle.

I can totally understand someone in a public capacity being limited from expressing inflammatory abusive language by their contractor - but given the pretty tame nature of what he actually said, it seems a bit of a mad decision. They've turned it into a significantly bigger deal than it ever needed to be.

Do I have to repeat myself? I don't want to control anyones views.

Its funny how when this situation happens to far right arseholes everybody very smugly trots out the line, "You have freedom of speech, but you don't have freedom from consequences". Then they laugh and cheer when somebody they disagree with gets sacked or their business closes down.

This is absolutely no different.

I will repeat myself. Lineker can say whatever the hell he wants anywhere he wants. But don't cry to me when the people paying the bills decide he isn't worth the hassle any more.

You clearly do want to control people's views

Sounds pretty good actually.

It doesn't really though, does it? If I just want short digestible highlights I would watch them on YouTube.

I don't actually watch MOTD very often but surely the point of it is to tune into the discussion and analysis on offer?

Yeah. Anyone with this opinion, already had the option to get the thing they wanted. So I don’t see how it can be painted as progress.

I can guarantee you their ratings would plummet massively. The Sky pantomime with Neville, Carragher, Keano etc is so popular for a reason. It’s not because of their amazing footballing analysis.

Theres talk that they won’t have commentators for tomorrow night now either.

Ironically though, tomorrow night will get big ratings. Like who isn't going to tune it just to have a look?

For commentary, I guess they can use the world feed, ditto for the post match interviews with a rumour now that some players won't do direct BBC interviews tomorrow. I guess if other staff get involved (the people who condense it down to 10 minutes highlights, the camera people for the 2 games where the BBC provides the world feed, the various technicians who get it to air) then it might become impossible to broadcast. But obviously it's much more difficult for those people who are on just a normal wage to get involved.

I guess The Apprentice will be pulled by the BBC, seeing as Suicre spends an inordinate amount of time criticising Mick Lynch and the other striking unions. Or maybe that's different in some unfathomable way.

Simon Jordan outlines the issue well here.

Which is?

This will be a case study in how not to deal with an issue