Gary Lineker said his time at the BBC had run its course before he stepped down as presenter of Match of the Day last year. The former England striker framed the relationship in direct terms, comparing it to a marriage that had stopped working.
"I was going anyway, but we just brought it forward. I thought it seemed to be the sensible thing to do," Lineker said on The Louis Theroux Podcast, according to Yahoo Sports. "I think it's like a marriage with the BBC. We'd been together for a long time and we were starting to run out of love for each other. I'll always love the BBC. It's an amazing, amazing corporation."
Lineker had been the face of Match of the Day for 26 years before stepping down in May of last year. His departure followed criticism over political opinions he shared on social media. The final trigger was an Instagram post about Zionism that included an image of a rat, which carries historical associations as an antisemitic symbol.
Lineker said the post was not intentional. "Obviously, I learned about that pretty quickly after that. But that one I felt bad about because that was my mistake. That was my mistake because it was not with intent, but I could see why some people would be upset by that," he said. He also stated that he did not see the rat visual before posting and did not think anyone genuinely believed he would have posted it knowingly.
Since leaving the BBC, Lineker has built a significant media presence outside traditional broadcasting. He fronts The Rest Is Football podcast alongside Micah Richards and Alan Shearer. The series is airing as a daily TV show on Netflix during the 2026 World Cup, which is being held across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
His production company, Goalhanger, was named Britain's fastest-growing company last week. Research for the annual Sunday Times 100 showed the firm generated £37.9 million in sales in 2025, reflecting average annual sales growth of approximately 321 percent over the last three years. That figure placed Goalhanger at the top of all companies reviewed in the report.
