BBC Sport staff have accused Gary Lineker of expecting everyone to join his ‘picket lines’ after he made a Nazi slur at a meeting with director-general Tim Davie, according to insiders.
Davie and chief content officer Charlotte Moore went to BBC Sport’s Media City offices in Salford on Tuesday to address the staff over the controversy.
The Telegraph reported that staff were not on Lineker’s side and accused Davie of ‘capitulating’ to the Match of the Day host. One insider said that many people had spoken out against Lineker during the meeting, with some angry about how the crisis had affected jobs.
Culture minister Julia Lopez has warned that the Lineker controversy risks harming public support for the BBC licence fee. Last weekend, Lineker compared the UK Government’s migration crackdown to Nazi Germany on Twitter and refused to apologise.
He will return to Match of the Day this weekend. Lopez said ‘trust and impartiality’ were vital to the ‘social contract’ that underpins the licence fee.
She also admitted the licence fee was losing support among the public, and there have been calls from MPs to drop the ‘poll tax on propaganda’.
Director-general Tim Davie and content chief Charlotte Moore travelled to Salford on Tuesday to ‘reflect on the events of the last few days’ with sports staff.
People were ‘livid’ about what has happened, and it has been claimed that Davie had ‘just presented’ at staff when he spoke to them.
The BBC has faced criticism from both sides of the debate, with former BBC chief political correspondent John Sergeant saying that if ‘key freelance presenters’ cannot ‘stick to the rules, their contracts should end’.
A debate about the row was held in Parliament yesterday after Labour asked an urgent question in the Commons.
Labour’s culture spokesman Lucy Powell said Lineker being taken off air for tweeting something ‘the Government doesn’t like’ sounds like ‘Putin’s Russia’, which sparked further anger.
Conservative former minister Andrew Percy said: ‘I hope the shadow secretary of state will reflect on her comparison of this Government to the Putin regime which, of course, is engaged in war crimes and the murder of men, women, and children in Ukraine. That was beneath her.’
»Gary Lineker faces backlash from BBC Sport staff over Nazi comparison«
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