A Hamas-supporting news channel has hailed Gary Lineker for retweeting a Twitter post calling for Israel to be banned from international football tournaments. The Match of the Day presenter posted the tweet from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel yesterday which asked FIFA to ban the country from its tournaments “until it ends its grave violations of international law”.
The 63-year-old has now removed the tweet due to a “misunderstanding”. A source told the Daily Telegraph that the England legend was not fully aware of what he was sharing, with the source saying he thought it was a news article saying the country had been banned rather than a call to ban it.
Now the Quds News Network, a youth news agency which is connected to Hamas has posted a story on its website backing Lineker’s reposting of the tweet.
The article’s headline read: “Renowned English broadcaster calls for Israel to be banned from international [football].”
Following the post, politicians told the BBC to “enforce its own guidelines” and take action against the presenter.
Former Labour MP and independent peer, Ian Austin, said Lineker was making the BBC’s board look “utterly foolish”, while a Tory MP said the corporation needed to “take responsibility”.
Lord Austin told MailOnline: “Gary Lineker is undermining confidence in the impartiality on which the BBC’s public funding depends and is making the corporation’s board and senior managers look utterly foolish.”
It comes after the BBC’s incoming chairman, Samir Shah, suggested its new social media guidelines might have to be ripped up to address the continuing “psychodrama”.
Tory MP Damian Green, told MailOnline: “Gary Lineker continues with ever more controversial views, in this case directly affecting football. I want to see the BBC enforce its own guidelines on this.”
