Showing posts with label Gary Lineker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gary Lineker. Show all posts
Monday, 20 July 2026
Thursday, 12 March 2026
Friday, 17 October 2025
GARY LINEKER IS THE ONLY FOOTBALLER IN HISTORY THAT HAS NEVER BEEN CARDED
Gary Lineker is the only footballer in history that has never been carded. 🟨🟥
Yes, you read that correctly, he didn't receive a single yellow or red card during his entire career. 😲
He played 654 matches over 16 years.
#england #fblifestyle
Monday, 19 May 2025
GARY LINEKER QUITS BBC AND WILL NOT REPRESENT AT WORLD CUP AFTER ANTI-SEMITISM ROW
Gary Lineker is reportedly expected to announce he will leave the BBC on Monday.
His final show will be next Sunday's Match of the Day and he will not present the broadcaster's coverage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
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| Lineker will depart the BBC earlier than scheduledCredit: Getty Images - Getty |
The Sun reports Lineker will bring an early end to his BBC tenure via mutual agreement, days after he apologised for sharing a post which led to accusations of anti-semitism.
"It is a heartbreaking end to an extraordinary broadcasting career," a source told the publication.
Lineker came under fire for re-sharing a pro-Gaza video which likened supporters of Israel to rats.
The image of rats has historically been used as part of anti-semitic propaganda, including in Nazi Germany during the 1930s.
The post was soon deleted but not before it was widely viewed and sparked calls for the BBC to part ways with Lineker.
The 64-year-old issued an apology the following day and said: “On Instagram I re-posted material which I have since learned contained offensive references.
“I very much regret these references. I would never knowingly share anything anti-semitic. It goes against everything I believe in.
“The post was removed as soon as I became aware of the issue.
“Whilst I strongly believe in the importance of speaking out on humanitarian issues, including the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, I also know that how we do so matters.
"I take full responsibility for this mistake. That image does not reflect my views.”
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| Lineker's post on social media sparked major backlashCredit: Alamy |
But Lineker has now taken the step of leaving his position earlier than scheduled.
A source told The Sun: “Gary acknowledged his position at the BBC, anchoring the most prestigious tournament in world football, was untenable, and he will not be hosting the World Cup.
“He offered to step down at the end of the season, and did not want the BBC — an organisation he still holds in the highest of esteem — dragged into any further controversy.
“He remains absolutely devastated by the recent turn of events and is deeply regretful about how his post was interpreted.
"His last Match of the Day will air on Sunday now and he won’t be back.”
It was announced last October Lineker would depart flagship show Match of the Day at the end of the 2024/25 season.
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| Lineker was the highest earner among the BBC's presentersCredit: Getty |
The former England international had presented the highlights show since 1999.
In the announcement, it was revealed Lineker would remain part of the BBC's football coverage for a further 18 months before cutting all ties with the broadcaster.
He had agreed a contract extension to stay on and present next season's FA Cup coverage along with the 2026 World Cup.
But that will be no longer following the expected announcement on Monday.
Lineker's future at the BBC was a hot topic earlier in the season given his contract was due to expire at the end of the 2024/25 campaign.
The 64-year-old also commanded a salary more than £1.3million-a-year at the BBC, the broadcaster's highest declared salary for a presenter.
Lineker had previously come under fire for his social media usage.
In March last year, Lineker was briefly suspended from hosting Match of the Day after a Twitter post about the British government's asylum policy prompted a row about BBC presenters expressing political views on social media.
Lineker's fellow presenters and pundits, including Alan Shearer and Ian Wright, refused to appear on the show in solidarity with Lineker and it was reduced to a 20-minute highlights package, which contained no hosts, pundits or commentary.
The ex-Everton, Leicester, Barcelona and Tottenham star was reinstated to the programme just over a week later.
The 64-year-old replaced Des Lynam in the MOTD role in 1999 after moving into punditry and presenting following his playing career.
- Alex Conrad
Monday, 3 February 2025
Sunday, 8 December 2024
Saturday, 8 June 2024
LIVERPOOL CHAIRMAN HOPES PREMIER LEAGUE GAMES IN NEW YORK AS FIFA REVIEWS TRADITIONAL RULES
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| AP |
The chairman of Liverpool is “determined one day” to see the storied English soccer team play a Premier League game in New York — an idea that met immediate resistance from fans on Friday.
The topic of top European leagues staging games abroad has been revived after FIFA recently opened a review of its rules blocking so-called “out-of-territory” games. The Premier League proposed in 2008 to stage an extra round of games each season outside England, but it met with strong opposition from supporter groups as well as FIFA.
If FIFA changes its policy, it could open the door to European leagues staging games in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia — both key and lucrative future tournament hosts for the world governing body — as well as other countries where top clubs frequently play offseason exhibitions.
“I’m determined one day to have a Premier League game be played in New York City,” Liverpool chairman Tom Werner told the Financial Times in an interview published Friday.
Werner laid out an even more ambitious “crazy” plan for multiple Premier League games to be played on a rolling schedule around the world on the same day.
“I even have the sort of crazy idea,” Werner said, “that there would be a day where we play one game in Tokyo, one game a few hours later in Los Angeles, one game a few hours later in Rio, one game a few hours later in Riyadh and make it sort of a day where football, where the Premier League, is celebrated.”
Opposition was quick to come from one of Liverpool's leading supporter groups, Spirit of Shankly, which wrote on social media: “Anyone determined to play competitive LFC Premier League matches abroad should remember that we as fans are determined they don’t.”
Playing league games abroad has been a red line for European soccer even if countries like Spain, Italy and France have taken their domestic Super Cup games to Saudi Arabia, China and Israel. Super Cups are largely ceremonial events played between the previous season’s national league and cup title winners.
Liverpool’s principal owner, American financier John Henry, seemed to be wary of fans' reactions.
The FT reported that Henry, also the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, stressed that Werner’s hopes for a game in New York was “not something that I advocate or am particularly interested in.”
Henry had to apologize to Liverpool fans in 2021 for signing the club up for the hugely divisive Super League that 12 storied teams tried to launch as a breakaway from European soccer’s traditional competitive structure.
A furious backlash by fans and threats of legislation by the British government forced the six English clubs to withdraw and the Super League plan collapsed within 48 hours. Real Madrid and Barcelona are still working on plans to revive the project.
“Out-of-territory” games risks creating another rift between English fans and their clubs’ owners, who are increasingly billionaires from the U.S. and Middle East nation states.
Organizing games abroad is “not part of our current plans, it really isn’t,” Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said in April, after FIFA fueled speculation by agreeing to withdraw from a court case in New York on the issue.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino gave no timeline last month for when its review will be completed.
The criteria for FIFA's working group to consider included helping domestic fans travel thousands of miles (kilometers) for games, and protecting local teams who could be overshadowed by clubs with global brands coming to play near them.
“Let’s figure out a way to offer them very cheap travel, accommodations so that if Liverpool is playing Nottingham Forest, we will support fans coming to New York and make this an attractive thing for the fans as well,” Werner told the FT.
The reaction on social media last month by former England and Barcelona great Gary Lineker to the idea of playing games abroad was clear: “No. No. No.”
Liverpool's Premier League rivals Manchester City and Chelsea will play competitive games in the U.S. next year, in FIFA's Club World Cup which has been expanded to 32 teams. Liverpool did not qualify as one of the 12 European entries.
- GRAHAM DUNBAR
Thursday, 28 March 2024
FREED FROM WEIGHT OF EXPECTATION, CAN GERMANY FLY AT EURO 2024?
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| Maxi Mittelstadt's goal against Netherlands helped Euro 2024 hosts Germany score a pair of victories against top opponents during the international break. KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images |
FRANKFURT, Germany -- The odd thing about watching Germany less than three months from the 2024 European Championship, their first major event on home soil since the 2006 World Cup, is the blasé vibe you get from fans, players and coach Julian Nagelsmann.
The 45,000 fans in attendance for Tuesday's 2-1 friendly win against Netherlands certainly made a racket, but in a corporate crowd/stadium DJ/pass-the-beer sort of way. They didn't despair when Joey Veerman put the visitors ahead after just four minutes, nor did they lose their minds when Maxi Mittelstadt -- whose errant backpass led to Germany going a goal down -- wiped the slate clean with a surgical strike into the top corner a few minutes later.
In fact, their reaction was in line with the music they play after each German goal, chosen as the result of a recent fan-led campaign: a catchy version of Peter Schilling's "Major Tom" which itself was picked up from this Adidas ad. (Me? I prefer this one from "Breaking Bad.")
The tune, of course, is about an astronaut whose spaceship loses contact with ground control back on Earth and he drifts off into space. While everyone back home mourns, he's actually content ("floating weightless, coming home") as he loosens the Earthly shackles and drifts away into the darkness (or maybe the light; we don't get to find out.)
Were this a ninth-grade English paper, the metaphor with Nagelsmann's German national team adventure would be almost too obvious. Germany -- with their four World Cups and three European crowns and Gary Lineker's famous declaration that "football is a simple game; 22 players chase a ball for 90 minutes and in the end Germans always win" -- may be the ultimate aristocrats of the European game. But in June, it will be eight years since they last won a knockout game in a major tournament. They're under no illusions about their prospects; confidence is at a low ebb. So why not stop worrying, keep it simple and enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts?
That seemed to be Nagelsmann's thinking heading into this international break. Unlike the last two outings -- defeats at home to Turkey and away to Austria -- there were no fancy schemes or out-of-the-box brain waves like Kai Havertz at left-back. Instead, he kept things as simple and straightforward as he could with a tidy 4-2-3-1 system that generally fielded most players in the roles they fill with their clubs. And he let them play, come what may.
With hindsight, it makes sense. Nagelsmann, 36, is the former boy wonder of German football, a guy who got his first senior Bundesliga gig at the age of 28 and went on to coach both RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich. The latter signed him at great expense and fired him a year ago at even greater expense amid grumbling that, for all his brilliance, he was arrogant and immature. That may or may not be true, but the perception of it is true and Nagelsmann knows this.
He took the Germany job in September as a de facto caretaker until after the Euros. Whatever ambitions he had of making his mark on the side via tactics, patterns of play and philosophy appeared to go out the window with those defeats back in November, possibly because he realized what he likely already suspected: that a national-team coach simply doesn't have the time to effect meaningful change. Not when he only gets a couple training sessions with his squad every couple months.
It's not just the off-the-shelf 4-2-3-1 that's a testament to this. It's also his decision to recall 34-year-old Toni Kroos, three years after his international retirement. The Real Madrid midfielder lined up just behind captain Ilkay Gündogan, 33, giving Germany a central axis long on experience and technical ability but inevitably short on legs and intensity. Which is why, to complete his midfield trio, he turned to a guy like Robert Andrich, who looks like (and often plays like) the sort of bouncer you might see at a warehouse rave. Andrich, 29, made his debut in Saturday's 2-0 away win over France, and he does the blue-collar grunt work on behalf of Gündogan and Kroos.
It's a very un-Nagelsmann setup and you can't imagine him doing this at club level by choice. But that's the thing about international football: choice is limited. And in the international game being the dogmatic, pig-headed "vision guy" is often the wrong decision. Better to be the pragmatic man-manager, especially when everyone knows you won't be around for long.
This doesn't mean that Nagelsmann wasn't assertive. He cast a pretty wide net with his first squad (which lost to Austria and Turkey) and then jettisoned 11 of those 27 for the more recent group, who beat France and the Dutch. Nor did he have any qualms about playing the same XI in both games, which is rather unusual since most national team coaches -- especially when they've had only two games in charge and there's a major tournament coming up -- like to rotate so they can get a good look at their resources and avoid annoying clubs who want to keep their guys fresh for the stretch run.
It's especially notable when you consider the lineup included debutants like Andrich and Mittelstadt. Nagelsmann's critics accuse him of being entitled and spoiled (and, to be fair, he spent his career at clubs with plenty of resources) but this felt like a willingness to look beyond the big names and plumb the depths of the plebs (so to speak.) Andrich's Bayer Leverkusen may be running away with the Bundesliga, but he is far from an automatic choice this season, having started 16 of their 26 league games on the bench. It's a similar story with the 27-year-old Mittelstadt. Stuttgart are flying high in third place, but he too cracked the starting lineup in fewer than two-thirds of their games and was relegated last year at Hertha Berlin.
But it's a pragmatic, go-with-the-flow assertiveness. The tactics are textbook. You play possession -- rather than some complicated, sophisticated press -- because you have Kroos, Gündogan and Joshua Kimmich when he steps into midfield. You tuck your wingers -- Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala -- inside because they're dribblers, that's their natural tendency and they excel at slipping through balls for your forward.
Don't let the designed play that led to Wirtz's goal inside of seven seconds against France fool you, either. Yes, it was planned, and Nagelsmann gave the credit to his assistant Mads Buttgereit, saying it was "excellent prepared." But let's not kid ourselves; a "designed play" that ends with a shot from 30 yards out isn't really a game plan. It's a scratch card and nothing more -- two bucks to win a million.
Nagelsmann, you assume, isn't going to get carried away by a couple of friendlies. France were thoroughly outplayed, especially in the second half, but it's not the first time we've seen it happen with a Didier Deschamps side. Against a far more technically limited Dutch team that sat deep and clogged space, Germany bossed possession and deserved the win, albeit without dominating and with more than a couple serious defensive lapses. Still, it's two credible wins in five days and that hasn't happened since before the pandemic.
Germany may be stuck with a suboptimal blend of young (Wirtz, Musiala) old (Kroos, Gündogan, Manuel Neuer when he returns, and he always does,) and unsung (Andrich, Mittelstadt), but they're ready to enjoy the ride. And if they stay as blasé as they have been -- and treat a Euro run as gravy -- they may just get their wish and float weightlessly deep into the competition and, eventually, come home to their rightful place in the game's pecking order.
Saturday, 9 December 2023
Sunday, 27 August 2023
SOCCER'S LEADING BODY FIFA SUSPENDS SPANISH SOCCER CHIEF OVER KISS
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| Reuters |
Soccer's world governing body FIFA suspended Spanish federation chief Luis Rubiales from all football-related activities for three months on Saturday as it investigates allegations he gave a player an unwanted kiss on the lips after Spain's women won the World Cup.
FIFA had opened disciplinary proceedings against Rubiales two days ago over the incident with player Jenni Hermoso last Sunday in Sydney that has caused an uproar among players and fans. Rubiales' suspension from national and international activities takes immediate effect, it said on Saturday.
Rubiales said he would use the probe to show his innocence.
Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Monday, 13 March 2023
Wednesday, 8 March 2023
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