The BBC

Please god

Good luck to GB News who have announced that they are doing an Alternative Match of the Day today programme with pundits…

… but as they don’t own any sporting rights they won’t be able to show viewers any football action or goals.

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) March 11, 2023

Update: they are able to show viewers still photography from football games, so that’s something.

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) March 11, 2023

i would just like to note that the Rugby Union crowd will be business as usual today

maybe they can get Bob on to draw some amusing caricatures of the action

watching a slide show of Prem games to own the libs seems live a very GB News audience thing to do

raises an interesting question about whether there's a limit on the number of photographs they can show, and how short the interval between each picture has to be

I've turned on BBC radio 5 live to see how FIGHTING TALK would respond to all this.

And it's not happening at all!

Now I wonder if 5LIVE SPORT from noon will take place.

pic.twitter.com/3nLvxs8KBP

— The Seagull Has Landed (@Red__Tim) March 11, 2023

Football Focus looks cancelled

surely somebody's getting fired over this, and not Lineker

I wonder how worried the Tories (and media) are that a lot of football fans, who they take for granted are subhuman bigots, might start thinking, "Maybe Lineker has a point"?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fq7m98QXsAItIVR?format=jpg&name=medium

It's inflated a post on the internet to the attention of everyone in the country to look at it and think about. I think there are positives from this xp lol

Yes, definitely. It might be forgotten by next week though. Who knows?

I can report that 5LIVE SPORT - a programme that usually lasts about 6 hours - is off. Like FIGHTING TALK it is replaced by rubbish pre-recorded banter from the week.

Didn't realise the crisis would spread this far.

'It's either the end of Tim Davie or of Gary Lineker,' texts a fairly senior contact at the BBC. I might add: And it's not the end of Gary Lineker

— James Macintyre (@James_Macintyre) March 11, 2023

this is fairly magnificent

Tim Davie has lost the news

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDKQliH1awY

it will be a tough competition for a more entertaining self-own for the rest of the year and it's not even near finished yet

I want this to take down both Sharp and Davie, although the current government will just parachute in a slightly wetter Tory.

Gibb also

Although his term on the board expires in May anyway. Fucker.

If only for the hat-trick headlines! (I think Gibb is worse than Davie fwiw)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fq8oGfmX0AAo0Hd?format=jpg&name=large

Lmao

Jeff Stelling brilliant as ever #MOTDboycott #IStandWithGaryLinekar pic.twitter.com/1O3nF4U68B

— Usman (@101Usman) March 11, 2023

Match of the Day will run for 20 minutes tonight. pic.twitter.com/YIuoCFVbvP

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) March 11, 2023

Match of the Day will run for 20 minutes tonight. pic.twitter.com/YIuoCFVbvP

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) March 11, 2023

Lol snap

loool

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fq9k6ptX0AEtaBr?format=jpg&name=900x900

I feel like Matt has bowed to some heavy political pressure here and his natural comedic instincts would have led him more towards themes of MOTD being an improvement without any presenters.

Nailed it

"this is good actually" I say as I tune into the still-image flickbook no commentary 20 minute long ersatz Match of the Day in solidarity with the BBC brass's heroic war against the woke stasi

they should just lugubriously scroll through the BBC sport liveblog on screen for 20 minutes

This Have Your Say comment saying "never a pen! VAR lost the plot! What has the game come to" by a Man Utd fan from Cambridge is certainly better insight than what Ian Wright usually serves up, writes one Mike Giggler from Essex

There is no doubt that the Tory government are loathsome. They are right-wing slags and sleazeballs, but they cannot be compared to the Nazis.

Dunphy in full on pundit mode is calling Lineker an attention seeker!

never seen so many arses in one weekend

xp yeah that’s a melt opinion, he did also say:

Eamon Dunphy has warned the BBC that they need to “back off rapidly” in their controversial dispute with football presenter Gary Lineker.

The popular Match of the Day presenter was suspended by the broadcaster after a tweet in which he compared language in the British government’s new immigration Bill to 1930s Nazi Germany.

The BBC was forced to apologise to fans after a mass exodus of presenters, pundits and commentators in support of Lineker led to hours of football coverage being cancelled.

“I think the thing the BBC should worry about is the solidarity of other people who know and work with Lineker,” said Dunphy.

“The solidarity they’ve shown is extraordinary. The very fact is that the BBC’s entire soccer output yesterday had gone off air — every single element — the results, everything, nobody was prepared to work.”

The colourful pundit, who hosts the popular podcast The Stand added that he doesn’t believe he would have experienced the same widespread support if he had landed in similar hot water.

“If I got in to trouble with RTE on this kind of issue the last person I would expect to show solidarity would be George f**king Hamilton.”

I needed some kind of balance here anyway, and at least he's funny. I've not forgotten about the days when Gary was "politically homeless" and I bear grudges longer than most elephants do.

bill flinging the pen across the desk in eamons hour of need

Darragh please he’s dead

he left his life

for a young wun

motd tonight will be 20 minutes of "match highlights" simulated by Kevin Tom's Football Manager, zx spectrum version

What on earth? pic.twitter.com/H1lsg84ScT

— Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) March 11, 2023

https://t.co/H0CNgnObAF pic.twitter.com/pdhVAO6xlb

— Samplo Corvodina (@TreborRhurbarb) March 11, 2023

LOL like John Redwood has ever watched football in his life.

"Good replays so you could see what happened and understand penalty calls"

even Jimmy Hill is snickering at this from hell

This 3 minute clip from 2021 is still being widely shared. It's helpful if you want to understand how Gary Lineker feels about the issue of refugees, about his relationship with the BBC - and about the idea of the BBC telling him what he can and can't tweet. pic.twitter.com/f5EWdx68tQ

— Ros Atkins (@BBCRosAtkins) March 12, 2023

That Andrew Neil was--and continues to be--seen as some kind of honest broker journalist is all the evidence you need that this brand of 'impartiality' is a complete crock of steaming horseshit

— Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) March 12, 2023

You could do it dressed up like Ian Wright

— RabFace (@RabFace1888) March 11, 2023

Guessing that was a reply to David Baddiel?

it was. Dave is doing wryly above it all banter on the whole Lineker thing because dehumanising speech only matters if it's about him