Good riddance Gary Lineker – Britain’s chief pontificator

He crazily endorsed a second referendum on Brexit and compared the language around the government’s asylum policy to that of 1930s Germany

Never meet your heroes, and never hear their political views either. Certainly, when it comes to Gary Lineker. 
Many of us oldies recall him more as a lethal striker for Leicester, Everton, Barcelona, Tottenham and England. He still holds the record for most World Cup goals by an Englishman, and sad obsessive that I am, I recall where I was when each of them hit the net. Part of me is sad that he’s leaving the BBC. The guy has been on Match of the Day for ever, taking over as presenter from the peerless Des Lynam in 1999. And remember, this was his second career. 
But I’m still relieved he’s going. Not because I wish ill on the guy, but because he’s royally smashed our acceptance that those employed by the taxpayer-funded BBC should be politically impartial. He’s stretched to the limit the absurd fashion for celebrities to pontificate about politics. His incessant preaching and virtue-signalling have debased his organisation, hastened its decline and given ammunition to those of us who believe the licence fee must be abolished.
If the BBC’s highest-paid presenter can’t keep his politics to himself, then the whole pretence of a “national broadcaster” collapse like a German striker in the penalty area.
The warning signs have been there for years. In 2018, Jonathan Agnew told him: “Please observe BBC editorial guidelines and keep your political views … to yourself. I’d be sacked if I followed your example.” But the BBC was unable to contain the monster it had created and turned a blind eye to his increasingly brazen output.
I lost patience in 2021, when, after 44 years of hurt, we at last celebrated a female tennis star, Emma Raducanu, winning a major tournament. But Gary turned it into Leave-Remain spat, with a spectacularly silly tweet of the Daily Express front-page picture of Raducanu beside a headline about illegal channel migrants being turned back to France. “Oh the irony”, Lineker wrote, unable to contain his smugness. There was of course zero irony. Every country on earth benefits from legal immigration while striving to prevent the illegal variety. But nuance was beyond my ‘80s footballing hero.
He also loudly endorsed a second referendum on Brexit and compared the language around the government’s asylum policy to that of 1930s Germany. I wonder how he feels when migrants end up drowning in the Channel. Then came that bizarre episode when the BBC suspended him after one misdemeanour too many, only to be forced into rewriting its impartiality guidelines to suit him.
Enough. Lineker is paid over a million quid a year by the BBC, which would surely be better spent on someone happy to limit themselves to football rather than sermonising about international refugee policies.
Even so, a part of me can’t stop loving him. I really can’t. There are too many great memories, like that hat trick against Poland in ’86, and his equaliser against the Germans in ‘90. Fabulous. Mind you, he celebrated Leicester City’s League-winning triumph in 2016 by opening MOTD in his boxer shorts. What on earth will he do if his final broadcast in 2026 is England winning the World Cup? Well, it’s not going to happen, is it.