Replacing Gary Lineker at Match of the Day is a self-destructive move the BBC will live to regret

Sky Sports presenter Kelly Cates is set to join the BBC’s Match of the Day line-up when Gary Lineker leaves after 25 years at the helm. But the departure of the corporation’s most highly paid presenter has long been in play, says Jim White

Watching the flagship BBC News at 10 programme last month, you might have been forgiven for thinking all was well in the world – that Gaza was no longer a killing field, that Ukraine was safe from Putin, that the planet had started to cool down. Because the second item on the agenda was the news that, from next May, a 63-year-old presenter would no longer be at the helm of a popular weekly television show.

A full six minutes of reporting and analysis were devoted to the fact that Gary Lineker was finishing his 25-year stint on Match of the Day. He’s not even leaving the BBC: he will front live football coverage until the final of the World Cup in 2026. But, still, a bloke’s employment position was reckoned the second most important international news story of the day.

A month on, focus has once again returned to the future of Match of the Day, with the news thatSky Sports presenter Kelly Cates is set to join the presenting team following Gary Lineker’s departure. The 49-year-old will form part of a three-person presenting lineup with Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan starting next season, as former England striker Lineker steps down.

The intense interest in his replacement, if nothing else, provides conclusive proof that Lineker has become one of those rare figures in broadcasting: he is way bigger than the show he presents.

Indeed, after he comprehensively outflanked the BBC’s director general last March, when his disciplinary suspension for anti-government social media posts was speedily reversed following the entire football reporting team withdrawing their labour in solidarity, there is an argument that he is bigger than the corporation itself.

Everything about him – from the scale of his salary (in its most recent annual report, the BBC said Lineker earns between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999) through the success of his own broadcasting company, to his political opinions – has become a staple of the news cycle. For some fulminating figures on the right, he has been magnified into the very epitome of the overpaid woke media establishment.

So much so, that it appears the newly appointed head of BBC Sport, Alex Kay-Jelski, has decided his most significant piece of television output would be better off without its frontman. As Katie Razzall, the BBC’s media editor, reported on the news, Lineker has not been offered a contract extension; he wanted to stay on, at least for a bit longer.

But corporation insiders suggest Kay-Jelski reckoned a new direction was required, that Lineker’s sixtysomething white maleness was not the demographic he wished the programme to reflect, that it would benefit from a quieter, less divisive figure at its helm. He was thus determined to accelerate the old boy’s retirement plans. This was not a decision of mutual consent.

He learned from his mentor, Des Lynam, a way of treating his subject with importance but not reverence, able to recognise its essential absurdity without undermining its consequence

Which, if true, must constitute one of the most self-destructive executive moves in television history. Seeking to rid yourself of the bloke everyone talks about so that nobody talks about your programme anymore is simply baffling. Besides, there is one reason Lineker has been at the helm for a quarter of a century and it has nothing to do with his wider prominence. He has been there because he is simply brilliant at his job.

Calm, unflustered, with a knowing twinkle, the way he conducts Match of the Day is less presentational and more conversational, as if he is joining us on the sofa or down the pub, inviting us into the chat. More to the point, despite his enormous prominence, beyond that one appearance in his underpants when his favourite team won the league, the show is never about him.

Lineker deflects attention to the match highlights. In collective discussion, he never imposes his opinions, allowing his panel of experts the space to deliver theirs, his questions teasing out information, analysis, nuance. Plus, he learned from his mentor, Des Lynam, a way of treating his subject with importance but not reverence, able to recognise its essential absurdity without undermining its consequence. And as Lynam readily acknowledges, Lineker brings an added authority the great man himself never could: he speaks as someone who scored 48 times for his country.

The very fact Lineker makes it look so easy disguises quite how hard it is. Indeed, his own improvement – from the rabbit in the headlights with the monotonal East Midlands delivery of his earliest efforts to the relaxed accomplishment of today – is a demonstration of the difference between those who think they know what they are doing and those who actually do know. The BBC are ridding themselves of the very best.

Not that we should be too concerned about what Lineker does next. A man of enormous energy and curiosity, he will find plenty to occupy his time, not least the growing portfolio of his podcast empire. Plus, you suspect other broadcasters will be watching the BBC’s profligacy with some attention, particularly in the US, where the growing market for English football could easily find room for a broadcaster of his prominence. They would be more than happy to buy in a bit of the attention he gleans.

However the final new presenting shakes down, there is one thing we can be certain of: when they finally are eased out of the presentational chair their departure will not be the second item on BBC News at 10.

Because there is only one Gary Lineker.