![Gary Lineker said of Match of the Day: "It's time [to leave]. I've done it for a long time, it's been brilliant, it's been great... Well, perhaps they want me to leave... There was a sense of that"](https://www.rte.ie/images/0022555b-800.jpg)
Gary Lineker has said he thinks the BBC wanted him to leave Match of the Day - with the former footballer adding that he "didn't like the damage" done by his controversial tweeting.
The outgoing MOTD host made his comments in a new BBC Two interview with Amol Rajan, which airs on Tuesday evening.
"Amol Rajan Interviews: @GaryLineker" is now on @BBCiPlayer
— Amol Rajan (@amolrajan) April 22, 2025
All 46 minutes of it
Also on @BBCTwo at 7pm if that's your preferred method
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The 64-year-old will leave the BBC after fronting its coverage of the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
Lineker, who has worked as a presenter on the highlights programme Match of the Day since 1999, told the BBC's Rajan: "It's time [to leave]. I've done it for a long time, it's been brilliant, it's been great... Well, perhaps they want me to leave... There was a sense of that.
"I always wanted one more contract. It was their preference that I didn't do Match of the Day for one more year so they could bring in new people. So, it's slightly unusual that I would do the FA Cup and the World Cup, but, to be honest, it's a scenario that suits me perfectly."
A trio of presenters - Kelly Cates, Mark Chapman, and Gabby Logan - will replace him on MOTD.
Lineker was also asked about the furore in March 2023 over his tweet comparing the then-British government's asylum policy with 1930s Germany.
The former England striker was briefly taken off air, and other sports journalists and presenters walked out in solidarity before he returned to fronting MOTD.
Lineker said: "I don't regret saying them publicly, because I was right - what I said, it was accurate - so not at all in that sense.
"Would I, in hindsight, do it again? No, I wouldn't, because of all the nonsense that came with it... It was a ridiculous overreaction that was just a reply to someone that was being very rude. And I wasn't particularly rude back."
He added: "But I wouldn't do it again because of all the kerfuffle that followed, and I love the BBC, and I didn't like the damage that it did to the BBC... But do I regret it and do I think it was the wrong thing to do? No."
Lineker also said the BBC should "have ignored it, and it would have been fine".
He called the corporation "silly" for its "overreaction" in taking him off air.
His tweets, which sparked a row about BBC presenters expressing political views on social media, led to enhanced rules for BBC flagship presenters, including a ban on making attacks on political parties.
Lineker said he "wasn't that bothered" to be told via a news alert, and not by the BBC, that he would not be allowed back on MOTD for a while.
He also said he "cried" when fellow players-turned-pundits refused to go on air.
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".
Lineker 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.
"Why shouldn't I have an opinion on things? I'm a bloody footballer who's turned into a sports presenter."
Earlier this year, Lineker condemned - along with more than 500 other media figures - the withdrawal of 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.
Lineker's 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 last 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 will also host BBC Sport's coverage of the FA Cup in the 2025-26 season.
The presenter will continue with the MOTD Top Ten podcast, and the BBC will also host The Rest Is Football podcast, featuring Lineker, on BBC Sounds.
Amol Rajan Interviews: Gary Lineker airs on BBC Two at 7pm.
Source: Press Association
