Gary: I felt Beeb wanted to give me MOTD boot

Presenter recalls a 'sense' that a shake-up was being planned

- BY MARK JEFFERIES and DANIEL ORME

GARY Lineker says he sensed the BBC wanted him to leave Match of the Day when he was negotiating a new contract last year.

The presenter, 64, and the corporation jointly announced in November that he would be stepping down from the channel's flagship football programme.

Asked in a new BBC interview why he would choose to leave given his successful tenure, Lineker said: "Well, perhaps they want me to leave. There was the sense of that."

The former Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, Spurs and England striker, who will still host coverage of the 2025/26 FA Cup and 2026 World Cup, added: "It's time. I've done it for a long time, it's been brilliant.

"I always wanted one more contract, and I was umm-ing and ahh-ing about whether to do three years [more]. In the end, I think there was a feeling that, because it was a new rights period, it was a chance to change the programme."

The BBC did not comment on that suggestion yesterday. But at the time Lineker's exit was announced, director of sport Alex Kay-Jelski described him as a "world-class presenter".

A trio of hosts - Kelly Cates, Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan - will replace him on MOTD.

In a wide-ranging interview with journalist Amol Rajan, Lineker spoke about the 2023 social media posts that led to him being briefly suspended. The BBC went into crisis mode when his MOTD co-stars refused to appear on the show in solidarity with him.