After 25 years, football legend Gary Lineker has stepped down from Match of the Day. And as he does so, let’s recap why he can do so with his head held high – especially because of his opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Gary Lineker: taking a stand
In 2023, the BBC asked Gary Lineker to apologise for criticising the Conservative government’s asylum policy language as akin to that of 1930s Germany. After his principled refusal to do so, fellow presenters joined his walkout. The BBC later reinstated him.
Lineker’s employers at the BBC have consistently shown pro-Israel bias during the apartheid state’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. But the presenter has refused to back down to threats and pressure to support Israel’s war crimes. Instead, he has insisted on standing up for human rights.
When it became clear that Israel was enacting collective punishment yet again on the civilian population of the occupied Gaza Strip after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, Lineker stood up for protesters who were facing vile smears from the government:
Marching and calling for a ceasefire and peace so that more innocent children don’t get killed is not really the definition of a hate march. https://t.co/qLyIqZKhwt
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) November 3, 2023
He also shared an Israeli historian’s comments branding his country’s actions as “textbook genocide”:
Worth 13 minutes of anyone’s time. https://t.co/noj9iecVWs
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) November 21, 2023
In a January 2024 interview, meanwhile, he asked:
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.
And when responding to some Jewish friends who asked him to show support for Israel online, he said “What?! Look, absolutely no. And nor should you.”
Despite leaving Match of the Day, Lineker will continue in other roles at the BBC. But thanks to his wealth and successful Goalhanger Podcasts company, he can afford to spend less time at the toxic national broadcaster.
Gaza genocide is “the worst thing I’ve seen in my lifetime”
In May 2024, Gary Lineker spoke to journalist Mehdi Hasan about the Gaza genocide. He called it “the worst thing I’ve seen in my lifetime”. And he added:
I’m not Israeli. I’m not Palestinian. So I see it, I think, purely from the outside… from neutral perspective.
However, he said:
the minute you… raise your voice against what they’re now doing there…you get accused of being a supporter of Hamas… There’s a lot heavy lobbying on people to be quiet. So I understand why most people refrain. But I’m getting on a bit now… I’m fairly secure. And I can’t be silent about what’s happening there… It’s just… so utterly awful.
He also insisted:
It’s not antisemitic to say that what Israel is doing is wrong… I just can’t see how everybody doesn’t see it that way now… Whatever started it, we all know that… the history of this area of the world goes way before October the 7th, but it’s truly dreadful what’s happening. And I cry on a regular basis when I see certain images on social media.
More recently, he retweeted a UNICEF spokesperson calling Gaza “hell on Earth”:
This is what life is like for a million terrified children in Gaza as they are bombed, sniped, massacred & starved by IOF colonial terrorists backed & armed by US, UK & Germany & whitewashed by Western media.
As the UN says, it is “Hell on Earth”. pic.twitter.com/LJFckV6QCB
— John Gibbons 🇵🇸 (@think_or_swim) October 20, 2024
Lineker is certainly not perfect, of course. His company, for example, employs war criminal Alastair Campbell. And when Lineker faced threats over sharing a tweet about boycotting Israel, he backtracked.
However, it’s shockingly rare today to find such high-profile celebrities willing to openly oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza. So on the occasion of Gary Lineker stepping back from Match of the Day, we’d like to thank him for taking a stand.
Featured image via the Canary
