Maybe. But it is a truly lazy comment from Linekar. Crass, nonsensical and quite frankly, hysterical.

And Mr Linekar, for all his many and varied faults has never struck me as being any of those things.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

Hope so, one of the best pundit on tv and radio. Give MOTD to Mark Chapman and revamp the whole programme

Perhaps we will actually see more of the games. The punditry has got worse over the years, having been an avid viewer for years, I have not watched it for months ( nothing to do with our form)

We really need a referendum on whether people still want a broadcaster like the BBC, and funded by a compulsory licence fee or not.

I don't give a s*** what presenters say on any commercial TV station because I can, and do, choose not to watch them and that comes at zero cost. I loathe Sky news so don't watch it. I loathe CNN so don't watch it. And so on. But nobody is forcing me to pay for them.

But I do have to pay for the Linekars of this world.

I reckon I will watch MoTD tomorrow just for the lolz. Be fantastic if it can get higher viewing figures without the pundits.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

The Lefty Pope of cancel-culture just got cancelled.....and it is marvelous to behold.

he who silenced all the fun on the terraces, has been silenced.

the DUP called him Lefty-Linekar, in the Chamber at Westminster. Bualadh bos

[Link]

Edited by PalazioVecchio (11 Mar 2023 9.20am)

Kayla did Anfield & Old Trafford

Lineker didn't bring politics into the BBC. The DG is a political appointment, made by the PM (this one by BJ)
"BBC Director General Tim Davie quizzed on Lineker row"

At least kids will realise how us 'oldies' used to watch live football via Ceefax.

Personally, I would pay three ties the TV licence fee, just to see Lineker back on our TV screens. Maybe also fronting a few charidee adverts.

I disengage, I turn the page.

More likely to be "Bein Sports"

Why do people watch it then as I switch off as soon as the final whistle has been blown

I stopped watching motd years ago. Mostly that's because the goals are on YouTube earlier in the day, but I did get very bored of the format. You see so little football in the hour and a bit the programme is on, and far too much of their slightly smug, personal-in-joke style of punditry. Whatever the outcome of this current issue, its no loss at all as far as I can see.

That said, and regardless of whether I agree with his opinion on the government's policies, I feel the BBC dropping Lineker is a weird one, entirely devoid of evident reason.

Football pundits have ended up discussing political and social issues a lot in recent years. From blm to women's football to human rights in the middle East to dubious club owners, the list goes on. Almost none of them are especially well qualified to discuss these things, but what they usually do is all say exactly the same thing as each other on any issue, usually only see any issue from a sort of uninformed, soft-left kind of position, and (especially on the BBC) never, ever acknowledge that any other opinion even exists.

What the BBC seem to have concluded is that its fine to use motd to host pointless, preachy and totally one sided political 'debates' but the individual presenter cannot, in his own time and on his own social media platform, express a political opinion. Surely it should be the other way around?

Either way, cancel culture is s***, and no less so on the rare occasions it squashes a left wing voice.

I think that it's part of the society that we live in. I much prefer the old days when a commentator's job was to tell the viewer who was on the ball and very little else as I don't find the trivia that the commentator and his mate now trot out to be interesting at all.