Gary Lineker's status on Match of the Day is now being debated more than the government's migration policy that sparked the row
The country's most-watched football show, Match of the Day, is now embroiled in a thorny debate over the impartiality expected from non-news talent at the BBC, free speech and government pressure on the publicly-funded broadcaster.
Friday 10 March 2023 19:59, UK
Decades after finishing playing, Gary Lineker has been sent off for the first time.
The presenter was determined not to back down - however much the BBC asked him to apologise for tweets criticising the government's new migration policy.
Sky News understands the former England striker refused to accept he should not have referenced 1930s Germany in relation to the government's "Stop the Boats" rhetoric.
Despite being the BBC's highest-paid staff member and the face of its football coverage, he believed his status as a freelance presenter provided the latitude for political tweets.
The BBC disagreed. So Match of the Day is without a presenter.
And it's understood there is a reluctance for anyone to fill Lineker's seat in the studio on Saturday night.
Read more:
Gary Lineker forced out of role as Match of the Day presenter
A history of Gary Lineker's most controversial tweets
Alan Shearer joins Ian Wright in pulling out of Match of the Day
Who will step in for Gary Lineker?
Two pundits - Ian Wright and Alan Shearer - have already refused to participate in the Premier League highlights show that still attracts millions in an era of clips being available online long before the show airs.
Would any commentator even want to voice games from stadiums given how toxic the row has become?
Does the BBC or Lineker back down?
Lineker wants to use his voice for more than football.
The former Leicester and Tottenham striker's emergence as an impassioned political observer at the centre of a dispute with the government would have been unexpected during his playing days.
He was defined by a clean-cut image - never receiving a red card.
Now he sees himself as political but not party-political, telling GQ magazine in 2017: "I just tweet stuff that I feel about."
He added: "How you can attack someone for having that empathy."
And it is only beyond the BBC where Lineker's politically-charged commentary is heard.
Apart from when the BBC decides to insert politics into its football coverage fronted by Lineker, as happened at the World Cup in Qatar.
The BBC was acclaimed for challenging the host nation on human rights violations, enraging Qatar.
But for the BBC - taking on the government closer to home - is deemed unacceptable by its lead football presenter given the offence caused by equating policies to 1930s Germany.
The country's most-watched football show is now embroiled in a thorny debate over the impartiality expected from non-news talent at the BBC, free speech and government pressure on the publicly-funded broadcaster.
And the status of the football presenter critic is now being debated more than the migration policy itself.