Gary Lineker is expected to announce he is leaving the BBC on Monday after apologising for amplifying online material with antisemitic connotations, the Guardian understands.
The Match of the Day host will reportedly not present the 2026 World Cup or next season’s FA Cup after “bowing out by mutual agreement” with the broadcaster.
A rat is an antisemitic trope that was used in Nazi Germany to characterise Jews as vermin. Lineker said in a statement that he would “never knowingly share anything antisemitic” and had deleted the post “as soon as I became aware of the issue”.
The BBC director general, Tim Davie, had been facing calls all week to sack Lineker, who was paid £1.4m by the BBC last year.
Yes, but again, he didn’t know it was a dogwhistle. I myself have accidentally used dogwhistles before as well for things.
Also, the sun came up this morning. And experts say it will likely happen again tomorrow…
He wasn’t aware of it, became aware of it, so he apologized and removed the video.
That doesn’t invalidate his original message and doesn’t need to keep being rehashed.
We can just move on instead of constantly repeating true things, but if that’s what we’re doing let’s look at the silver lining at least and talk about how the planet hasn’t literally plunged into eternal darkness yet.