Gary Lineker is facing calls to be sacked from the BBC after calling for Israel to be banned from international football. The presenter has been receiving a barrage of criticism since reposting a statement from a pro-Palestine group known as the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel which called for the country to be removed from global tournaments.
In a statement on X/Twitter, they said: “The Palestinian Football Association calls on @iocmedia, @FIFAcom and all regional and int’l sports bodies to take an urgent stance on Israel’s grave violations of human rights and subject it to legal accountability measures.”
Following his repost, thousands of people have taken to social media to blast Mr Lineker for his activity. Furthermore, politicians have also waded into the debate and lambasted Mr Lineker for his action.
Writing on X/Twitter, Lee Harris said: “Gary Lineker, the man who shamelessly took £1.6m from human rights abusing, terrorist supporting Qatar, retweets a call for Israel to be banned from international football.
“Enough is enough! The BBC MUST boot him out. This man is an absolute disgrace.”
Editor of the Jewish Chronicle Jake Wallis Simons added: “Gary Lineker has retweeted a call for Israel to be barred from international football. Could this be the same Lineker who pocketed £1.6 million from Qatar? And covered the World Cup there? Why, yes. Yes, it is.”
Founder of Conservative Home Tim Montgomerie commented: “We still await Gary Lineker’s call for Iran to be banned for global export of terror; of Russia for mass bombing Syria before he went there for the World Cup; of North Korea for extreme totalitarianism towards its own ppl etc.”
Other social media users also had theories about why Mr Lineker was speaking up about Israel/Palestine and not other issues. Renée Hoenderkamp wrote: “The man who went to Qatar.
“He hasn’t called for China to be banned from the sport for keeping 2 million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps. Because the Chinese aren’t Jewish.”
The LSE’s Professor Alan Sked added: “Gary Lineker has tweeted that Israel should be banned from international football and all other international tournaments. Time for the BBC to take him off the air.”
Politicians have also slammed Mr Lineker for his decision to repost the statement. Speaking to the Telegraph, Jewish Conservative MP Andrew Percy said: “Gary Lineker is an ill-informed, ignorant commentator on the Middle East.”
Mr Percy added: “The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement [to boycott Israel] is a racist, anti-Semitic campaign and nobody who receives taxpayers’ money working in the BBC should be endorsing a campaign that is widely understood to promote Jew hate.”
Former Cabinet Minister and parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel Stephen Crabb commented: “This a deeply inappropriate tweet for any BBC figure to endorse, and especially for someone of Lineker’s prominence. The BDS movement is riddled with antisemitism from top to bottom, and deepens the divisions in our own society.”
The post which Mr Lineker reposted featured a lengthy statement which called for the ban on Israel. On football, it said: “In a recent statement, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) called on the International Olympic Committee, FIFA and all regional and international sports governing bodies to take an urgent stance towards Israel’s grave violations of human rights and subject it to legal accountability measures.”
The statement added: “The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) supports the PFA demand while also calling for international public and official pressure on international sporting bodies, especially the IOC and FIFA, to suspend Israel’s membership and ban it from international tournaments and games until it ends its grave violations of international law, particularly it’s apartheid rule and the crime of genocide it is perpetrating in Gaza.”
