Gary Lineker leaves Match of the Day LIVE: BBC ‘agree podcast deal’ with host as MOTD exit announced
Lineker is stepping down as Match of the Day host at the end of the season after 25 years at the helm before leaving the BBC entirely in 2026
Gary Lineker will step down as the host of the BBC’s iconic Premier League highlights show Match of the Day after 25 years at the helm, with the corporation officially confirming his exit on Tuesday morning.
The former Tottenham, Everton, Leicester and Barcelona striker – who also won 80 England caps – has been the leading face on the highlights show since 1999 but will walk away at the end of the season. The BBC announced the news in a press release that also confirmed he will host coverage of the FA Cup for the 2025-26 season and will front the World Cup in the summer of 2026, at which point he is expected to leave the coprporation entirely.
Alex Kay-Jelski, director of BBC Sport, said: “Gary is a world-class presenter, and we’re delighted that he’ll lead our coverage of the next World Cup and continue to lead our live coverage of the FA Cup. After 25 seasons Gary is stepping down from MOTD. We want to thank him for everything he has done for the show, which continues to attract millions of viewers each week. He’ll be hugely missed on the show but we’re so happy he is staying with the BBC to present live football.”
Lineker has often courted controversy, with his declared annual salary of £1.3m making him the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, and he was briefly suspended in 2023 after airing political views critical of the Conservative government on social media.
Speculation is now hotting up as to who will replace the 63-year-old in the MOTD chair with the likes of Alex Scott, Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan all thought to be in the running. Follow all the latest updates on Lineker’s departure with our blog below:
The Rest is Football to have weekly episodes on BBC Sounds
Gary Lineker’s podcast The Rest is Football, which he hosts alongside Alan Shearer and Micah Richards, will be airing weekly episodes on BBC Sounds from next month according to the PA News Agency.
The news comes after Lineker was confirmed to be stepping down from his role as the presenter of Match of the Day at the end of the current season.
Learning from Lynam
As a presenter, Lineker sometimes stood in for Des Lynam on the Saturday afternoon sports show Grandstand and by the mid-90s he was appearing on Match of the Day, also hosted by Lynam, as a pundit.
“Des was very helpful - I used to ask a lot of questions about the little things that he did, and picked up some of his nuances,” Lineker said.
“He told me to be brave occasionally with closing lines, and not to be afraid to try to be amusing. Again, the little pay-offs I sometimes make at the end of the show are something that came from him.”
Transition to media
“As early as my mid-20s, I knew which direction I wanted to go in when I retired from playing,” Gary Lineker told the BBC in 2014 when speaking about how he made the move into media.
He added: “I would watch the newspaper guys write their opening paragraphs and sit with the radio journalists and talk to them about how they did their job.”
Lineker started out on Radio 5 Live which he described as ‘a learning process’. He later admitted his transition into radio and TV ‘took a lot of work’.
“I managed to stumble my way through it,” he said: “I learned from really good people alongside me who were incredibly helpful in the early days.”
Lineker’s on-field heroics
Gary Lineker was an immeasurably good footballer and a fine striker. During his playing career he captained England and scored 48 goals in 80 appearances, famously never receiving a red or yellow card.
Lineker was the 1986 World Cup Golden Boot winner, and the top goal-scorer in England three times, each with a different club: Leicester City, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur.
His ability on the pitch made him a popular figure in the late 80s and early 90s which aided his transition into broadcasting following his retirement in 1994.
Match of the Day and BBC will miss Gary Lineker’s urbane presence – the feeling is not mutual
When Des Lynam hung up his moustache and walked away from the Match of the Day presenting gig in 1999, BBC bosses were faced with a conundrum. Lynam was popular with viewers and a sporting polymath but had jumped ship for ITV after they doubled his pay. Who could fill his boots on such a shoestring budget?
The answer was Gary Lineker. Described by the BBC, at the time, as having a “relaxed style”, Lineker was already familiar to viewers thanks not only to a stellar on-pitch career, but various presenting jobs across the corporation. He had appeared on Radio 5 Live and Grandstand, as well as a stint as a captain on They Think It’s All Over, a comedy panel show. And as the lights came up on the 1999/2000 Premier League season, he found himself in one of biggest jobs in football media, presiding over the flagship highlights package of a season that featured 23 goals from his future sofa-mate, Alan Shearer.
It was the start of a glittering 25-year tenure in the role – which will conclude next May after the BBC allegedly opted not to renew his contract – that would turn him from a predatory striker to one of the nation’s top broadcasters, and then into a powerful, and often controversial, media mogul.
Match of the Day will miss Gary Lineker’s urbane presence – the feeling is not mutual
Gary Lineker is leaving ‘MOTD’ at the end of this season, after a glittering 25-year tenure as the host of the BBC’s flagship football show. Nick Hilton looks back at the pundit’s highs and lows, from predatory striker to top broadcaster and media mogul
The peculiar Premier League trend that hints at drastic change
As Ange Postecoglou came in after another deflating Tottenham Hotspur defeat, both he and fans were evidently furious, but there were some calming voices. It’s just “that kind of season”, as some around the club maintained. This isn’t a figure of speech. It’s a fact. Spurs’s inconsistency has spread to the majority of the Premier League, in a way that has never been seen before.
The gap between third and 13th is only four points. Between third and 11th, it’s a mere three. The table has never been so congested at this stage, across more than half the table and almost a third of the way through the season.
Historically, the closest we’ve seen to this kind of table at this stage are the four points that separated third-placed Chelsea and 11th-placed Fulham in 2002-03, and the five between Spurs and Middlesbrough in 2005-06. From third to 13th, the closest has been the six between Arsenal and Newcastle United in 1998-99.
The peculiar thing about the Premier League table
An almost unprecedented crunch in the standings after 11 games is creating a wildly fluctuating table like no other Premier League season before it
BBC confirms exit of ‘world-class’ Gary Lineker from Match of the Day
Gary Lineker will depart Match of the Day at the end of the season after more than 25 years fronting the BBC’s flagship football highlights programme.
Lineker succeeded Des Lynam as the primary host in 1999 having previously featured regularly as a pundit on the show.
With his contract due to expire at the end of the 2024/25 campaign, the 63-year-old entered into negotiations over an extension, but BBC bosses have elected to move on.
BBC confirms exit of ‘world-class’ Gary Lineker from Match of the Day
The former striker will depart the programme at the end of the 2024/25 season
Who will replace Gary Lineker as Match of the Day host?
With Gary Lineker set to leave his role as Match of the Day presenter at the end of the season, the BBC will soon begin the hunt for his replacement.
Here we take a look at five candidates to replace Lineker:
1) Mark Chapman
‘Chappers’ is the regular presenter of Match of the Day 2, which shows highlights of Premier League action on Sunday evenings.
He is also a key part of the BBC’s coverage of football on radio, presenting Sports Report on 5 Live and the Monday Night Club on the same channel.
BBC planning ‘major shake up’ to Match of the Day
Now that it has been confirmed that Gary Lineker will be stepping down thoughts go to the future of Match of the Day and what it will look like.
The obvious answer is a straight replacement comes in for Lineker with plenty of names like Alex Scott, Mark Chapman and Micah Richards being thrown around.
However, The Sun have reported that one option for the BBC is to ‘shake up’ the programme with a series of hosts who rotate on a semi-regular basis.
BBC statement on Lineker’s future
The BBC have announced that Gary Lineker is leaving and staying at the same time. He will depart as Match of the Day host at the end of the current season but remain on to present FA Cup coverage and the BBC’s coverage of the 2026 World Cup.
A statement released this morning reads: “The BBC and Gary Lineker have agreed in principle a contract extension through to the 2026 World Cup. Gary will lead the coverage of the tournament, as England once again try to land a first major trophy since 1966, the other Home Nations look to qualify and Lionel Messi aims to retain the trophy he won with Argentina.
“Gary will also host BBC Sport’s coverage of the FA Cup in the 2025/26 season, 35 years on from lifting the trophy as a player.
“After a quarter of a century, Gary is stepping down from hosting Match of The Day at the end of this season. He will continue with the MOTD Top Ten podcast and the BBC will also host the hugely popular The Rest is Football podcast on BBC Sounds.”
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