Game Over, Gary: Why the BBC’s Favorite Diva Had to Go

This Sunday, the BBC will show Gary Lineker a red card. The only real question regards why it didn’t come sooner. Once the face of football on British TV, Lineker now leaves under a cloud of his own making: overpaid, overindulged, and increasingly overbearing.

Lineker is arguably the most polarizing figure in British sport. A brilliant striker in his day, no one is disputing that. But for years, he’s used that legacy as a shield, wrapping himself in a kind of moral authority that went largely unchallenged. He wasn’t just a host. He was a brand. The BBC’s golden boy. The crisps ad-man turned conscience of the nation.

In 1999, Lineker started presenting Match of the Day, one of Britain’s most beloved and iconic shows. It wasn’t just a football program. It was a ritual, a sacred space where tribal loyalties could be set aside for shared appreciation of the game. Arsenal fans. United fans. Even Spurs fans were welcome. Everyone tuned in. And for decades, the unspoken agreement was simple: leave politics at the door. It was supposed to be a neutral zone, a place for post-match analysis, not a platform for ideological debate. Des Lynam, the legendary former host, didn’t lecture people about the IRA or the war in Kosovo. Alan Hansen never harped on about the plight of the Kurds, not because those issues didn’t matter, but because he understood the role he played.

But then came the drift.

Slowly, then very obviously, Lineker decided neutrality was beneath him. What began as the occasional wink toward political commentary morphed into full-blown sermonizing. Tweet after tweet. Snide comments about Brexit voters. Righteous indignation on immigration. Whatever the issue, Lineker had something to say, and he wanted you to know he was better than you for saying it.

Then came the final stumble.

Lineker shared an Instagram post attacking Zionism, which included a drawing of a rat. The image was tone-deaf at best, historically loaded at worst. For a man who has spent years lecturing the rest of us on kindness and decency, it was a jaw-dropping misstep. Not careless, but revealing. This is the same man who made a career of calling out others for perceived bigotry, who never missed a chance to shame from a safe distance. And yet here he was, sharing imagery so demeaning it would’ve ended anyone else overnight. The apology came late. The damage was already done.

With Lineker, we have witnessed a slow-motion unraveling. One that began years ago, not with a post about rats, but with a man who began to believe his own press clippings. A man who forgot he was there to present football, not to play moral gatekeeper to the nation.

Let’s also address the cowardice of the BBC. They enabled this drift. For far too long, they allowed Lineker to pontificate unchecked. They cloaked him in prestige while ignoring the public backlash. They propped up a figure who clearly no longer represented the audience he was hired to serve. And in doing so, they weakened themselves. The BBC’s continued insistence on paying him millions from public coffers, despite growing resentment, was not just out of touch, but contemptuous.

Gary Lineker wasn’t silenced. He wasn’t cancelled. He was indulged. Until it became too embarrassing to continue.

His defenders will frame this as censorship. They’ll argue he was punished for “speaking truth to power”. But that’s laughable as Lineker was the epitome of power. He was the voice, the face, and the inflated salary. He could mock government immigration policy on X, slam opponents as racist, and face zero consequences — until now. And only now, when his comments created too big a liability for the BBC to ignore, has he finally been ushered off the stage.

What’s next for Lineker? An LBC-like podcast. A new punditry platform. An audience of loyal followers convinced that he’s a martyr for free speech. That’s fine. Let him speak. Let the market, not the taxpayer, decide if he’s worth listening to.

But let’s not rewrite history. Gary Lineker didn’t fall. He drifted. Slowly, arrogantly, and with the quiet encouragement of institutions that lacked the backbone to pull him back in. He went from being a loveable, Alan Partridge-type figure — awkward, clumsy, oddly endearing — to a sanctimonious bore who started fancying himself as the next Noam Chomsky. This Sunday, when the lights dim and the credits roll, remember this: Match of the Day didn’t lose its host. It has a chance to reclaim its soul. And Lineker? He becomes a cautionary tale; a lesson in what happens when ego goes unchecked. When a man who’s never been told no begins to believe he can say anything, do anything, and the world will just nod along.