Gary Lineker’s history of controversial tweets as top-earning BBC presenter

Gary Lineker, the highest-paid presenter at the BBC, has often found himself in the headlines over his views posted on social media platform X.

Here is a round-up of the controversies the 63-year-old has been involved in during his time at the BBC, as the broadcaster is set to confirm his exit.

– Migrant policy

Lineker has often voiced support for a liberal approach to border controls, and has also expressed support for a second EU referendum.

In March 2023, he compared the language used to launch a government asylum seeker policy to 1930s Germany, describing the scheme as “immeasurably cruel”.

His comments sparked a backlash which saw the BBC remove him from hosting football highlights programme Match Of The Day.

Lineker later returned to the show after the row prompted a number of his fellow pundits, including Ian Wright and Alan Shearer, to boycott it.

The BBC later introduced new social media rules banning flagship presenters from making attacks on political parties.

– Conservative Party

In 2018, Lineker was criticised by BBC cricket presenter Jonathan Agnew after he posted a string of tweets criticising the Conservative Party.

Agnew told Lineker that as “the face of BBC Sport”, he should “observe BBC editorial guidelines”.

It came after Lineker tweeted: “Imagine how hopeless you’d have to be to still be behind the Tory party in the polls. The absolute state of our politics.”

In 2022, the BBC found Lineker had breached its impartiality guidelines over comments he had made in February asking then-foreign secretary Liz Truss if her party would “hand back their donations from Russian donors” after the invasion of Ukraine.

– Qatar World Cup

Before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Lineker led criticism of then-foreign secretary James Cleverly for suggesting LGBT+ football fans be “respectful of the host nation” – where homosexuality is illegal.

“Whatever you do, don’t do anything Gay. Is that the message?” Lineker said in response to the cabinet minister’s comments.

Lineker later opened the BBC’s broadcast coverage of the Qatar World Cup with a critique of the host country’s treatment of migrant workers and record on human rights.

– Sewage

In August 2022, BBC journalist Neil Henderson asked if Lineker had a contract which allowed him to breach BBC impartiality after he tweeted about sewage being pumped into the sea.

The presenter had posted: “As a politician how could you ever, under any circumstances, bring yourself to vote for pumping sewage into our seas? Unfathomable!”

– Israel

Lineker was criticised for reportedly accidentally retweeting a call for Israel to be banned from international sporting events, including football, amid the war in Gaza.

He told the Guardian earlier this year that he has “received threats”, and said: “If you lean to one side or the other, the levels of attack are extraordinary. How could it be controversial to want peace? I just don’t understand it.

“You don’t need to be Islamophobic to condemn Hamas or antisemitic to condemn Israel. But at the moment it’s just awful. Awful.”