Will Gary Lineker be presenting Motd on Saturday?
- Thread starter Bingoman
- Start date
US audiences would lap him up, they're such suckers for the accent plus he's a bit of a silver fox. I imagine he could make a fortune without the scrutiny his financial arrangements get here. Why would it be problematic for him? Because it's Fox? Fox News and Fox sports are completely different beasts although of course owned by the same fuckwit.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Inevitable, though. And somewhat ironic, given that the pro-Israel right are more than capable of using far more offensive imagery about the victims of the genocide that Israel is engaged in. not to mention their overt desire to bomb the place back to the Middle Ages.
But then, as we all know, the Great Crime is to criticise Israel. For anything. No matter how quietly.
Lord Camomile
Yipchaa!
P'raps, but I get the impression a lot of networks aren't exactly easy going when it comes to the kind of sentiments that have cause him problems at the BBC/in the UK.
In one way it's a shame for his time with the BBC to end like this. In another, it's not a bad hill (for your career with an organisation) to die on.
Not like there aren't plenty of recent examples of worse ways to go...
<edit: sorry, to clarify, in the moment I was thinking of the general notion of vocally calling out the Israeli govt/supporting the Palestinian cause, alongside the longer-term set of events. I haven't seen his original post, and obviously if it did include anti-Semitic tropes then at best it's naive and/or careless>
teqniq
DisMembered
There is a petition asking to reinstate him:
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
I'm prepared to think he didn't know or notice. Largely because, canny operator as he is, he wouldn't have done it. Imperfect parallel, but similar to Corbyn and the 'mural'.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Also, I'd never heard about the rat as a specifically antisemitic thing. I mean yes, the rat is used in all kinds of attacks and even attacks on groups of people, but I didn't know it was particularly used about Jewish people or Israel.
Dystopiary
The system isn't broken; it's rigged.
Yeah, I think and hope it wouldn't been malice. Corbyn... I'm not going there (mixed thoughts).
hitmouse
God laid a big egg in my heart to tell you this
Yeah, I think there is a larger question here, obviously a lot of this is tied up with ingroup/outgroup stuff about who we give the benefit of the doubt to and who we don't, but in general I think there's a bit of a thing where it's seen as a mark of virtue to take the most negative interpretation of something and perhaps it's worth trying not doing that? I really need to get around to reading Sedgwick's Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading one day.
Steel Icarus
an attempt was made
Yeah, the big story is Wot Woke Lineker Said not the slaughter he was on about.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Yeah, I can believe it's something he didn't really know about (like Wilf I've never heard of it as a specifically anti-semitic thing although the negative connotations are obvious) but when that was pointed out going 'oh OK I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that' is the right response rather than doubling down. And that should be enough, and it's infuriating that in the current climate it's not.
I think we can probably all recognise that the left can be absolutely chronic for that sort of behaviour though can't it. No backing down and forgiveness here.
trashpony
Hag
The BBC’s social media guidelines are very clear. He’s flouted them for years and got away with it: Guidance: Personal Use of Social Media
He shouldn’t have done.
He shouldn’t have done.
What the hell were they teaching you people in high school history here!?
The Nazi regime was very high on the history agenda in the country where I attended high school, and I may have had a weird history teacher or something, but Mr Wood spent a lot of time on Goebbels and 'the big lie'. Which I always found fascinating. How a cultured, sophisticated society could be duped into believing that bollocks.
I guess it's possible Lineker had no idea then if it wasnt in the curriculum here. But I really think he just missed it. It's not obvious.
Boo Radley75
I have a lovely missus
.
Lord Camomile
Yipchaa!
Weren't those guidelines changed at least twice in the past five years? In large part precisely because Lineker hadn't been flouting the previous versions, and they wanted to phrase them in such that it could stop him to do what he was doing?
I'm also not sure I'd call some of these "very clear":
given just how spectacularly broad they are.
At the very least, I bet we could find a few others who have been "getting away with it" in one way or another.
(Which is all leaving aside the fact that any idea of "impartiality" is ultimately something of a non-starter to begin with, and the validity of speaking on certain issues regardless of any guidelines, but they're bigger cans of bigger worms)
Maggot
The Cake of Liberty
This. We are in a world where an image is causing more offence than the killing of kids and the bombing of hospitals.
breadandcircuse
Petulant gobshites against whingeing twats cohort
I think this could be a blessing in disguise for him. Hopefully he can get involved with causes close to his heart now, without the backlash, becoming an ambassador for some groups. He would be a high profile figure, who is recognised internationally. Maybe he could even get into elected office at some point?
I hope to see him going down this route. His speaking up and speaking out was good to see.
trashpony
Hag
I’ve no idea. I don’t work for the bbc. But they’re currently in force and Lineker has chosen to work for a company which has them in place.
And we know all about the people who have been ‘getting away with it’. Huw Edwards springs to mind. Lineker is their highest paid employee. He needs to be setting an example, not demonstrating that he’s above the rules for the little people.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
That, and I do wonder whether he perhaps knew that, one way or another, his personal views were going to keep coming into conflict with the BBC strictures upon him, and maybe he decided just to go out in a blaze of glory - one which, incidentally, will have been helpful in bringing an awareness of what Israel is doing in Gaza to an even wider audience, which can't be a bad thing.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
His words were that he was taking ‘the responsible course of action’, so I don't really think he's claiming to be somehow above the little people. He's taken his lumps, at least ostensibly with good heart and a mature approach.
VivaE
Well-Known Member
Oh for god's sake. Setting an example for what exactly?
VivaE
Well-Known Member
^ I doubt that. A blaze of glory would surely not be so quickly followed by the sincere apology he offered in the aftermath of realising what he'd tweeted contained offensive imagery. Agree with you on the other though, re the drain his personal views V the BBC strictures might have had on him.
If anything, I'd guess he's just, finally, beyond weary of having to toe what is now such an egregiously restrictive line, has decided enough is enough and that his life can be better and more productively lived outside the 'confines' of the BBC.
Last edited:
Elpenor
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih Shantih Shantih
Lineker should abide by his employers social media policy, otherwise expect the consequences. Probably has a big ego and used to getting things his way but what celebrity doesn’t. I don’t watch football or Wimbledon and only come across his presenting at the Olympics, so rarely
If one of the top people in my organisation did something like this they should be treated the same way as someone junior.
Israel is a rogue state committing genocide on the Palestinians.
I wouldn’t associate “rat” with being anti-Semitic myself, not having a detailed knowledge of the history of that subject (am aware of the connotations) but trying to dehumanise any group or individual is pretty dangerous ground.
When I saw the meme he shared I spotted the rat straight away but I was also looking for it. So don’t know how obvious it was.
And rats are largely a hated animal given their associations with plague and disease, “ you dirty rat”, only someone bizarre like farmerbarleymow likes rats. The desert rats were an ironic nickname self-titled so don’t count
If one of the top people in my organisation did something like this they should be treated the same way as someone junior.
Israel is a rogue state committing genocide on the Palestinians.
I wouldn’t associate “rat” with being anti-Semitic myself, not having a detailed knowledge of the history of that subject (am aware of the connotations) but trying to dehumanise any group or individual is pretty dangerous ground.
When I saw the meme he shared I spotted the rat straight away but I was also looking for it. So don’t know how obvious it was.
And rats are largely a hated animal given their associations with plague and disease, “ you dirty rat”, only someone bizarre like farmerbarleymow likes rats. The desert rats were an ironic nickname self-titled so don’t count
trashpony
Hag
That being paid vastly more than everyone else in the company, he is an exemplary employee. Rather than one who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. The BBC has just had an investigation into its culture which has found that stars think they’re untouchable.
And he didn’t leave of his own accord. He was pushed.
Maggot
The Cake of Liberty
Are you really comparing Edwards kiddie porn offences to Linekers accidental oversight?
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
He DID accept the consequences. He even anticipated them - he acknowledged his error, and resigned, without any compensation.
What else should he have to do?
Similar threads
