IAN HERBERT: Is Match of the Day broadcasting at risk from Linekergate?

The Match of the Day controversy was unraveling so quickly on Friday night that its presence on our screens this weekend was far from certain.

They were last removed 30 years ago due to a strike by the coaching staff, although this is something more visceral and elemental, a riot that leaves the very future of the program in question.

One by one, Gary Lineker’s colleagues withdrew from the scene in acts of solidarity. First Ian Wright, then Alan Shearer, Alex Scott and Micah Richards, trapping the BBC in a deeply hateful position.

It was a position they didn’t see coming when they gleefully and falsely suggested that the show’s host would be ‘backing off’, having effectively eliminated him.

Stepping into the breach will not be for the faint-hearted. Several agents of the presenters advised against their clients last night, and with a tour of this difficult-to-discern minefield, the program that is a stronghold of football broadcasting plunges into its moment of greatest danger.

Gary Lineker has been temporarily removed from hosting Match of the Day

Lineker’s co-hosting team, including Micah Richards (left) and Alan Shearer (right), were quick to confirm that they would not appear on the show without Lineker.

Lineker is not the first BBC broadcaster to have been reprimanded for lack of neutrality, although in the world we once knew, when left and right meant John Barnes and Steve Coppell, the punishment was accepted and everyone moved on.

It was during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics that Bob Wilson, commenting on Daley Thompson’s medal ceremony, saw him whistle on the winners’ podium and stated, “I wish I had shown a little more respect for the anthem.” national”. It was censored and nothing more was heard or said about it.

Whatever topic he chose to comment on, it was clear that Lineker had gone too far when some of his own BBC colleagues, such as Neil Henderson and Katie Razzall, made clear assessments that this was a transgression.

Both are consummate professionals, intelligent and thoughtful, with reserved views. It is a raging dialectical and political storm in which Lineker has positioned himself, not just a contemporary debate.

It says everything about the permanent status and relevance of the show, to which Lineker has contributed substantially, that his tweets have brought the show to this position.

We are in a world of live football, ‘content generation’, digital goal clips and egregious dodgy streams, through which criminals steal our game.

We’ve seen Sky Sports take football streaming to another level, and yet Match of the Day remains our football staple. His standout hour or so remains as much a part of our weekend cadence as his thematic fanfare, composed in 1970 by Barry Stoller, whose goal was simply to write “something good.”

The show dominates this place because so many of us have measured our football lives through it, watching an unforgettable game and returning home to eagerly await Game of the Day to confirm that it really happened.

Lineker was temporarily dismissed from his duties by

Justin Fashanu for Norwich against Liverpool in 1980: ‘Oh oh what a goal. Oh, that’s a magnificent goal. Terry McDermott for Liverpool v Tottenham, 1978. ‘McDermott, Oh, that was beautiful.’ Glenn Hoddle for Tottenham against Watford, 1983. ‘He deserves those celebrations.’

Others have tried to replicate what it has been offering since 1964, but none have come remotely close.

ITV tried it in 2001, recruiting Des Lynam and featuring U2’s Beautiful Day and Andy Townsend in a tactics truck, but it wasn’t quite the same. BBC sports chief Peter Salmon rightly observed when Match of the Day returned three years later that it was like “welcoming home an old friend”.

That BBC coup paved the way for Lineker to assume the role he has held to this day and his presence on Twitter has actually been a way of retaining the BBC’s profile among younger audiences, for whom television is less relevant.

It’s a measure of the way broadcasting operates now, with major anchors operating as freelancers who can work for whomever they choose, that Lineker has had plenty of alternative options, long before what seems like a parting of ways.

His many opportunities allow him to test the patience of the corporation in a way that Wilson certainly never could.

It is the program that is damaged, perhaps beyond repair, not him. When it is safe to break the cover-up, other presenters will step in, but candidates who bring high-level football experience and a delivery that sustains the show in its competitive environment are rare. There’s a lot of beige out there.

The BBC has used Lineker as a figurehead for the iconic show for years of success.

Faced with the challenge of hell, some at the BBC will long for a softer, easier time, when presenters did not feel the need to inform the world of their opinions.

The late John Motson, whom Lineker spoke about on Match of the Day just two weeks ago, was invited to Downing Street by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, the latter of whom told him he was “one of my heroes”.

Motson was then given wine and dinner by Blair at a Checkers dinner, but all we heard from him was the story of his parting when he and the Prime Minister left that night.

“You should come to Football Focus at some point,” Motson told him. They were different times.