Gary Lineker has said the BBC “capitulated to lobbying that they get a lot” when it withdrew a documentary it aired on Gaza over complaints about links to Hamas.
The broadcaster, 64, was asked about his decision to join more than 500 media figures in a letter condemning the decision to withdraw the documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone after it emerged that the child narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
Speaking to Amol Rajan on BBC Radio 4’s Today show, he said he would “100%” support the documentary being shown again.
“I think you let people make their own minds up,” said Lineker. ” We’re adults. We’re allowed to see things like that. It’s incredibly moving.”
He added: ‘I think [the BBC] just capitulated to lobbying that they get a lot’.
Linekar said he does not see Abdullah as an issue, and maintained that the corporation should not have admitted to “a number of serious failings in their commissioning and editorial processes”.
He also defended his right to make politcal statements,
Asked about the rules, Lineker questioned why he had to be “impartial”, saying he was a “freelancer”, and the rules were for “people in news and current affairs – they have subsequently changed”.
He added that this “left me, who always gave these honest opinions about things”, having to be impartial which, he said, “didn’t make any sense”, and called it a freedom of speech issue.
“I think this is the mistake… the BBC tries to appease the people that hate the BBC, the people that always go on about the licence fee, attack the BBC. They worry way too much about that, rather than worry about the people that love the BBC, which is the vast majority,” he said.
Lineker ruled himself out of a career in politics, saying he has “never had a view”, before laughing.
“I think I’ll probably focus more on the podcast world, because it’s such a fun business and it’s just been so incredible,” he added.
His company, Goalhanger Podcasts, founded in 2019, has released popular podcasts such as The Rest Is Politics, The Rest Is Entertainment, and The Rest Is Football, which he co-hosts with MOTD colleagues Alan Shearer and Micah Richards.
Lineker has been the BBC’s highest-paid on-air talent for seven consecutive years and was estimated to have earned £1.35 million in the year 2023/24, according to the corporation’s annual report published in July.
When he stepped down, it was reported that he was open to staying on at MOTD but was not offered a new deal for the show.
He accused the BBC of forcing him out of Match of the Day and suggested that his bosses never wanted him to stay despite starting contract talks last year.
