More coverage disruptions at BBC as Lineker crisis deepens
LONDON (AP) — The BBC’s sports activities protection confronted a second day of extreme disruptions Sunday as dozens of employees refused to work in solidarity with high soccer host Gary Lineker, who was suspended by the broadcaster after he tweeted criticism of the British authorities’s asylum coverage.
Pressure was mounting on the BBC to resolve the disaster, with rising requires its bosses to step down over allegations of political bias and suppressing free speech.
The BBC suspended Lineker, one in every of English soccer’s most lauded gamers and the company’s highest-paid presenter, on Friday after he tweeted a criticism of the U.Okay. authorities’s new migration coverage and in contrast its language about migrants to that utilized in Nazi Germany.
He was referring to the Conservative authorities’s plans to cease migrants from arriving in small boats on U.Okay. shores by introducing powerful new legal guidelines that will detain asylum seekers, deport them and ban them from ever re-entering the U.Okay.
Immigration and “taking back control” of Britain’s borders has been a hot-button problem within the U.Okay. because the 2016 Brexit referendum, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made stopping the English Channel migrant crossings one in every of his high priorities. But his plans have drawn swift condemnation from the U.N.’s refugee company and plenty of rights teams, which name the insurance policies unethical and unworkable.
Lineker’s suspension has triggered an enormous backlash, and lots of the BBC’s sports activities presenters and reporters walked out of their jobs Saturday in assist of the presenter.
As a end result, a number of daytime soccer exhibits had been pulled on the final minute and “Match of the Day,” a preferred late-night program displaying highlights of Premier League video games that day and considered one thing of a British establishment because the Nineteen Sixties, aired with no commentary and solely featured shortened footage. Usually lasting round an hour and a half, Saturday’s “Match of the Day” solely aired for 20 minutes.
No presenters are anticipated to accompany Sunday’s protection of the Women’s Super League and “Match of the Day 2.”
Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, apologized for the disruption.
“It’s been a difficult day and I’m sorry that audiences have been affected and they haven’t got the programming,” Davie said on Saturday. “We are working very hard to resolve the situation and make sure that we get output back on air.”
Lineker, 62, is one in every of Britain’s most influential media figures and was paid 1.35 million kilos ($1.6 million) by the BBC final yr.
One of England’s best strikers with 48 targets in 80 worldwide appearances, he was a family title in Britain even earlier than he turned chief “Match of the Day” presenter in 1999.
The controversy started with a tweet on Tuesday from Lineker’s account describing the federal government’s plan to detain and deport migrants arriving by boat as “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.”
The Conservative authorities known as Lineker’s Nazi comparability offensive and unacceptable, and a few lawmakers stated he must be fired.
It was the newest controversy over the position of the 100-year-old BBC, which is funded by a license price paid by all households with a tv.
The broadcaster’s neutrality got here below current scrutiny over revelations that its chairman, Richard Sharp — a Conservative Party donor — helped prepare a mortgage for then Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2021, weeks earlier than he was appointed to the BBC publish on the federal government’s advice.
