He’s stayed loyal to the BBC for 25 years, even when he was told to stop taking sides on political issues.
But now Gary Lineker is finally defecting to the opposition, as he gets set to appear on a new ITV show.
The Match Of The Day presenter is the first star to be confirmed for new show Assembly, which will see him questioned by a group of people who are autistic, neurodivergent and/or learning disabled.
Mr Lineker, 64, has been with the BBC since 1999 presenting Match of the Day and becoming their highest paid presenter which stood at 1.3million as of last year.
Planning to step back from his role at the end of the season this year, his time at the BBC hasn’t been so smooth sailing.
In 2022, the BBC found Lineker had breached its impartiality guidelines over comments he had made in February asking then-foreign secretary Liz Truss if her party would ‘hand back their donations from Russian donors’ after the invasion of Ukraine.
In 2023 the former England footballer was asked to ‘step back’ from the popular highlights show over his comments comparing the language used to launch a new government asylum seeker policy to that of 1930s Germany.
He later returned to the presenting role after the row prompted a boycott by his fellow football pundits and commentators, hitting TV and radio coverage across the BBC.
Gary Lineker is the first star to be confirmed for new show Assembly starring on ITV
Mr Lineker, 64, has been with the BBC since 1999 presenting Match of the Day and becoming their highest paid presenter
Other celebrities for the ITV show include David Tennant, 53, Danny Dyer, 47, and Jade Thirlwall, 32 (file image)
Now in a move that seemed inevitable, he has joined the rival side of ITV.
Each episode of The Assembly will see a different celebrity forced to cast aside everything they were ever taught by their media trainers as they each face their most ‘honest interview to date’.
Other celebrities such as David Tennant, 53, Danny Dyer, 47, and Jade Thirlwall, 32, have also been confirmed.
In the new release ITV said: ‘After a long and illustrious career as both a Golden Boot-winning footballer and top sports broadcaster, and with his tenure as the longest-serving presenter of Match of the Day drawing to a close this summer, there’s no end to the stories that Lineker might share.
‘Carefully considered PR fluff won’t cut it on this show, and the celebrities can expect plenty of mischief and surprises once they get in the hotseat.’
Late last year Lineker revealed that he recently turned down the opportunity to appear on a major ITV reality show.
‘Do you know last week I got requests to go on Celebrity Big Brother,’ Lineker told Alan Shearer and Micah Richards on The Rest Is Football podcast.
Lineker added: ‘My agent sent it through, and then jokingly he replied, ‘Oh, yes. Gary’s fee will be £50 million!’
‘He did it completely as a joke, obviously. And they came back said, ‘Oh, that’s a little bit…that’s not within our budget’.’