Gary Lineker left the BBC with no choice as he finally reaches full time

The last two years have seen run into a host of controversies, so it is easy to forget he used to be mainly known for scoring goals, his big ears and flogging crisps.

Following his retirement after a distinguished playing career, Lineker joined BBC as a football pundit before becoming a team captain on the sports game show They Think It’s All Over from 1995 to 2003. The quiz in many ways helped him to have a more relaxed persona on screen, having initially seemed a little wooden in front of camera at times.

In 1997 he took over as host of Grandstand and when then-presenter Desmond Lynam was at Aintree for the Grand National which was abandoned due to a bomb alert. Lineker had hours to fill and learn to front live TV on the job.

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Speaking last month about it Lineker said: “I was thrust in there, just one camera, no autocue, or anything. It wasn't great, but actually it wasn't that bad either. But I tell you it was quite an experience, that was actually a defining experience because I thought if I can cope with this, than I can cope because you can't get anything more difficult than that.”

After honing his skills he replaced Lynam as presenter of the BBC’s flagship football highlights programme Match Of The Day in 1999, when Lynam defected to rival ITV.

Lineker would later become the corporation’s highest-paid presenter, with the BBC’s latest annual report showing his salary to be to around £1.35 million a year.

All the while he was also advertising Walkers Crisps, made in his hometown of Leicester. The partnership was so strong they would rename a flavour Salt and Lineker in the Nineties.

Lineker also presented Match Of The Day in his boxer shorts in 2016 after losing a bet which saw Leicester win the Premier league.

But his relaxed and jokey manner then began to show cracks in the last few years as he was hit by a string of controversies.

He was temporarily suspended from the BBC in March 2023 after an impartiality row over comments he made criticising the then-government’s new asylum policy on social media. Pundits refused to go on the show without him and he was reinstated. The BBC then issued new rules about twitter.

In November 2024 he announced he would be stepping down from presenting Match Of The Day at the end of the season, but would still host World Cup and FA Cup coverage.

In February this year along with 500 high-profile figures he signed an open letter in February urging the BBC to rebroadcast a documentary, Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, to BBC iPlayer. The BBC board highlighted “serious flaws” in the making of this programme.

In April he was outspoken again and said some BBC bosses “wanted” him out of the corporation, despite still having a contract with them for more than a year.

And finally a month later he is exiting the broadcaster early, however, after apologising for sharing and then deleting a post on his Instagram account from the group Palestine Lobby, illustrated with a picture of a rat, which prompted calls for him to be sacked from the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA).

Lineker was an iconic football presenter who millions will know as one of the faces of England’s highs and lows in World Cups and European Championships. But having famously never been booked in his football career where he was so level headed, he has been asked to leave by the BBC for an ill advised decision.

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