Gary Neville has indicated that Gary Lineker has been withdrawn from his role as the BBC’s MOTD lead presenter for having a go at “the Tories and the system.”
The former Manchester United defender, now a presenter and pundit looks to be backing his fellow presenter who has been removed from the BBC’s Match of the Day show.
His removal is due to recent comments online where he compared the United Kingdom’s government asylum seeker policy to that of Nazi Germany.
Neville has spoken vociferously about his political opinions in recent years and he has several times been highly critical of the present conversative leadership.
The BBC afterwards notified that no individual would present Saturday’s show and rather the production would just centre its show on match action.
Gary Neville is a loud labour supporter and he backed opposition leader Keir Starmer at a conference that was held in September.
The former England international frequently bashes the government on social media and now he has disclosed that “the system” is behind the reason for the removal of Lineker.
Gary Neville tweeted on Friday: “When you take on the Tories and the system! Awful people who we need gone. Off for a wine.”
The pair were at opposite ends as broadcasters during the FIFA World Cup in Qatar with Gary Neville discharging his duty for ITV and Lineker being the primary presenter on the coverage of the competition for the BBC.
Gary Lineker has been momentarily removed from his duty by the British Broadcasting Corporation due to breaking the firm’s social media code of conduct in a fresh tweet released recently.
The co-host of the show, Ian Wright also revealed that he would not be on this weekend’s edition of the BBC MOTD in solidarity with his colleague.
Alan Shearer also revealed that he has “informed” the BBC that he wouldn’t be on BBC’s Match Of The Day on Saturday night.
Jermaine Jenas has been named as bookmakers favorite to replace Gary Lineker with Gary Neville also feebly sounded to probably be assigned the role on the football highlights show.
The view of Gary Neville borders on the thought that the move taken by the BBC on whether they should keep Lineker or not was impacted by the conservative government.
A previous Tory Leader William Hague stated that it was “appropriate” for Gary Lineker to be removed as host of the BBC MOTD.
“He broke the guidelines I think of the BBC with comments that are highly politicised, which BBC presenters are not meant to do.”
“So that’s against the rules and we’ve got to do something about that, otherwise every presenter can do so on every programme.”
Jermaine Jenas and Micah Richards have also said that they would not be making an appearance on this weekend’s BBC MOTD show in support of their colleague, Gary Lineker.
A spokesperson of the BBC said: “Some of our pundits have said that they don’t wish to appear on the programme while we seek to resolve the situation with Gary.
“We understand their position and we have decided that the programme will focus on match action without studio presentation or punditry.”
Lineker has been told to “keep well away from political issues or political controversies.”
BBC’s statement on the Gary Lineker matter
In a statement released by the BBC, the organization said: “We have said that we consider his recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines.
“The BBC has decided that he will step back from presenting Match of the Day until we’ve got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media.
They added: “When it comes to leading our football and sports coverage, Gary is second to none. We have never said that Gary should be an opinion-free zone, or that he can’t have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies.”
A day before the decision was made, Lineker had hinted that he would not be punished by the BBC for his comments online as he tweeted:
“Well, it’s been an interesting couple of days,” he wrote on Thursday. “Happy that this ridiculously out of proportion story seems to be abating and very much looking forward to presenting @BBCMOTD on Saturday.
“Thanks again for all your incredible support. It’s been overwhelming.”
It’s left to be seen where the situation involving the BBC and Gary Lineker ends up.
