SILENCING THE SPORTS ANCHORS
but Gary Lineker is right to use his platform with integrity
If sport existed in a bubble, free from society’s many problems, then this column would be called “Why sport is lovely and fluffy.”
But sport matters, and those who have the biggest platforms, including Gary Lineker, are right to use their status to try and make things better.
Lineker’s removal from presenting Match of the Day by the BBC for his views on the UK Government and migrants perfectly encapsulates the uneasiness and hypocrisy around free speech at the corporation and beyond.
Lineker’s track record of speaking out on human rights matters, often involving the UK Government, meant his criticism of home secretary’s Suella Braverman’s latest stomach-churning announcement on migrants wasn’t surprising.
His follow-up which compared her tone to 1930s Germany is what propelled this towards a lead news story, led to him being taken out of the Match of the Day presenting seat and sparked solidarity amongst the ex-pro panellists, who refused to appear.
Lineker is a sports presenter, first and foremost. A freelance one. He doesn’t have the BBC logo tattooed on his head and any assertions he represents the BBC with his private views is at the very least disingenuous.
If we’re fair, we understand that the BBC has to have impartiality guidelines and rules, and the Lineker, let’s be honest, circumnavigates these at every opportunity. He’s not a man who will fail to shoot with an opinion inside the penalty area of society’s issues.
But this is an organisation with a chairman, Richard Sharp, who failed to disclose he helped to facilitate a £800,000 loan to Boris Johnson. That’s quite a background, and it’s not entirely fair to flame Director General Tim Davie without acknowledging it’s a situation nobody would find easy to deal with. What will be absolutely vital is how Davie handles it over the next few days - that’s what he’s paid for and he’d be the first to accept that.
There’s going to be a fair bit of full disclosure here. I’ve got time for Tim Davie. Why? I needed to get in contact with him last year. He replied within minutes. With a gracious, helpful email, genuine interest in my book on sport and ethics, and an invitation to stay in touch.
His actions were actually typical of the people I’ve dealt with at the top of organisations with ‘huge’ jobs. They have always made time for me, and this exposes the bullshit of middle managers who are just ‘too busy’ to reply, or make the most of your talents.
Such as some of the hapless managers below Davie at his organisation. People happy to use your expertise in global sports matters as a favour, then ignore you and employ the same old faces on their output. While someone working for an organisation seen as trendy, like The Athletic, who knows a fraction of what you do on subjects like FIFA Qatar, will be approached instead. Some of us are truly independent.
I worked at the BBC between 2003 and 2005, mainly programme editing BBC Radio 5 Live’s flagship evening sports show. I don’t know how much the place has actually changed, but it was everything I expected and that we see in parody from former employees. Too many meetings, too many back coverers.
I enjoyed my time there and flourished thanks to a brilliant boss, one of the rare dynamic, insightful and supportive bosses I had once I passed thirty. He understood that I was a trailblazer, bold and creative, as well as conscientious and experienced. He gave me my head, and I delivered. I can still see the faces of my colleagues who looked a bit wary and suspicious of some early decisions, such as me dropping the theme tune one night. Why? It needed dropping on that night. It was the right editorial decision.
The reason they looked so worried is also at the heart of the Lineker situation in 2023. There’s a fear, a collective concern about doing or saying anything that lead to an email chain from those managers at the corporation who spend their working life strategically protecting their own careers, and walking around with clipboards.(literally).
I Ieft to be Sports Editor at Sky News. But don’t think I’m anti-BBC. I’m anti the BBC not utilising me properly, and pretending they are better than they are. To think they don’t need me, I promise them, shows their limitations. I didn’t need their respect (I have it), but I might have need the employment (I don’t but I might have, and as a working class lad that matters to me.)
A Sky Sports News correspondent Kaveh Solhekol is getting a lot of appreciation, rightly, for taking apart BBC hypocrisy in a live segment. I like Kaveh. He understands that the role of a sports correspondent goes way beyond match action and seems to have grown in courage in recent years to become very high quality. His coverage of the dangerous and disgraceful Champions League treatment of fans in Paris last year was as good as it gets.
Not Kaveh’s fault at all, but steady on though Sky. I haven’t forgotten Sky Sports’ approach to the UK Government’s appalling record. When Gary Neville, before he lost his way, called out Johnson and Priti Patel for dog whistling on ‘taking a knee’ and racism, he was shut down by a terrified looking presenter. It was genuinely one of the worst piece of sports TV I’ve ever seen. Clearly there was panic in his ear. But if Neville wasn’t allowed to speak the truth, why did the panel even dare to discuss something of importance off the field. Let’s face it, getting irate about bad defending is their comfort zone, and they struggle when its gets more serious.
Sky should never dare to take the moral high ground. Ever. They got ever so excitable and bullish when the disgusting European Super League proposals were revealed – the plans that threatened their status. That’s not moral fibre, that’s survival mode. Yet the presenters and pundits as if they were freedom fighters. Do me a favour.
As for one of Sky’s main rivals, before they wade in they need to take care of their own employee’s, the ones who aren’t on presenter’s wages, who need to use foodbanks. Careful guys, careful.
The BBC, spearheaded by Lineker, got it absolutely right on the Qatar World Cup, with a stance that was not impartial at all. Neglecting to show the opening ceremony and starting with a rebuke to the human rights failings was not a sporting rights holder decision, it was an editorial, moral decision that had nuance and was brave. And correct. Oh, so sport and politics do mix.
Lineker, to his credit, says he’d wished he’d done the same kind of thing for Russia 2018. I did. I called out Putin’s ‘sanitised World Cup’ in my broadcasting, in a measured way as part of wider context. Other sports journalists at the time were simply talking about what a great World Cup it was on the pitch. Like they did a few months ago in Qatar. A tournament I stayed away from. This column might actually matter.
Sport reflects society and life, so does coverage of it, so does broadcasting around it.
If it’s just about action, is Muhammad Ali anything other than a brilliant boxer? The Ali story is about the man, his stances and his humanity more as any rope-a-dope.
If sports stars can’t use their platforms, then many thousands of British schoolchildren would have gone hungry. That’s why in my book The Dilly Dong Bell, I describe Marcus Rashord as the most important figure in UK sports history. At the time he was being criticised for not scoring enough goals.
Last bit of disclosure for what it’s worth. I am so absorbed with a creative writing project, for release later this year, and have so many important responsibilities in real life beyond work, that the very last thing I wanted to do was write about this Lineker situation today. So apologies for adding to the deluge. But I kinda feel I have the right. And might just have something different to say from the tired usual subjects. Using sports platforms for societal good is is at the heart of why I started this column, and why I evolved to sport and ethics after three decades of sports journalism.
The moment that actually prompted me to post was the BBC’s Newsnight coverage. They have a poor track record on sports news stories, in an industry that sorely needs people like me to cover sports news stories properly.
One guest was the ubiquitous Matthew Syed going at Lineker (is there a subject the former ping pong player isn’t an expert on?) And even worse was former Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell, a daily, lazy booking. I actually like Campbell, but his tendancy to talk over presenters belligerently was at its worse on what was a pretty shallow ‘argument’. Not as bad as when the programme booked Joey Barton to analyse an England international football story because middle class TV producers rebranded him as a great thinker when he said he studies philosophy and listened to The Smiths. Like millions of us. To repeat, news producers and bosses need all the help they can get when sport is involved. Clueless.
Finally, I don’t want to appear flippant while I write this early on the Saturday morning that Match of the Day will air with no presenters and pundits. But trust me, some people over the next few days will jokingly or saltily say it was a better show without them. And they’ll have a point.
The role of the sports panel, developed by Jimmy Hill when he was an executive at ITV in the early 1970s with deliberately colourful guests like Brian Clough, is out of control. People in TV think we are watching for the presentation and punditry. We ain’t. We are watching for the football. They should remember that.
But, if presenters and pundits are going to like the sound of their own voices, why not say something with humanity and integrity, like Lineker does.
Lee Wellings is a UK-based author, broadcaster and film maker specialising in sport and ethics. He has worked in key sports news roles at Sky, BBC and ITN in thirty years in sports journalism, and reported on major stories and events across the globe.
His first book on sport and society, The Dilly Dong Bell (a wake up call for sport) is available from www.ProjectisPublishing.com.
Media enquiries for analysis on sport and ethics, including TV, podcasts and public speaking direct to leewellings@hotmail.com
Top piece mate! Massively backfired on the Beeb and glad it has too, he didn't tweet from the MOTD Twitter account, he's a human being like everyone else. His view might not be to everyone's liking, but guess what, we're all allowed an opinion, don't like it, scroll on by, the support he's had from all four corners makes the score MOTD 0-1 Lineker.
Nice read Lee, thank you.