BBC in Turmoil as Revolt Over Gary Lineker’s ‘Match of the Day’ Suspension Spreads

The BBC scrambled to rearrange hours of programming in real time on Saturday after the suspension of the popular host of its cornerstone soccer program set off a revolt by on-air talent, forcing the broadcaster to curtail major portions of its weekend sports coverage and leaving it to face accusations that Britain’s culture wars had bled into its decision-making.

The crisis began on Friday with the announcement that the BBC had suspended Gary Lineker, the former English soccer star and longtime host of the soccer program “Match of the Day,” over comments that he made criticizing the Conservative government’s immigration plans.

By Saturday, the decision to remove Mr. Lineker from “Match of the Day” — a fixture on British television since the 1960s that is watched by millions every weekend — had led not only his co-hosts but also their potential replacements, related play-by-play commentators, and even players and coaches from the Premier League to join a spreading boycott.

Even the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, felt compelled to comment by day’s end, praising Mr. Lineker and defending his government’s immigration plan.

“I hope that the current situation between Gary Lineker and the BBC can be resolved in a timely manner, but it is rightly a matter for them, not the government,” he said.

Controversy had been brewing for days, ever since Mr. Lineker, a former captain of England’s national soccer team and the top goal scorer at the 1986 World Cup, suggested on Tuesday that the British home secretary, Suella Braverman, was using language reminiscent of 1930s Germany to promote a plan to stop asylum seekers who arrive on boats across the English Channel.

After several days of debate on social media, in the pages of British newspapers and in the halls of Parliament, the BBC said on Friday that Mr. Lineker’s social media activity was “a breach of our guidelines” and that he had been suspended from hosting “Match of the Day.”

“The BBC has decided that he will step back from presenting ‘Match of the Day’ until we’ve got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media,” the BBC said in a statement.

“We have never said that Gary should be an opinion-free zone,” it added, “or that he can’t have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies.”

Protests in support for Mr. Lineker began soon afterward, and spread to other BBC sports programming as a stream of hosts and commentators on other programs announced that they, too, would refuse to work.

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BBC executives, meanwhile, issued repeated apologies: to viewers for offering only “limited sport programming,” and to staff, through an email that was quickly leaked to multiple journalists.

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By late Saturday, however, the controversy showed no signs of ending. BBC sports programming in Wales and Scotland was curtailed. Another former player-turned-commentator, Jermain Defoe, said he would sit out the Sunday edition of “Match of the Day.” And in Leicester, where Mr. Lineker turned up to watch one of his former teams play, fans held up signs reading, “I’m With Gary. Migrants welcome.”

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{snip} Mr. Lineker had responded on Twitter to a video posted by the Home Office, which oversees immigration enforcement, in which Ms. Braverman promoted legislation that would give the department a “duty” to remove nearly all asylum seekers who arrive on boats across the English Channel {snip}

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Mr. Lineker responded with sharp criticism.

“This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?” he wrote.

The comments were roundly rejected by Ms. Braverman and others on the right, and set off a debate about the BBC’s impartiality and the comparison to 1930s Germany, which Ms. Braverman derided as “a lazy and unhelpful comparison to make.”

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