Gary Lineker reveals heart-warming aspect of his BBC suspension from Match of the Day

Gary Lineker has described the way he was supported by colleagues over his controversial suspension from the in 2023 as “beautiful”. The outgoing presenter was asked in a new TV interview if the storm over the political comments he’d made on social media had been “blown out of all proportion” and he agreed it had.

The TV star, 64, explained: “It was a crazy week. It upset me, having all the press outside my house every minute of the day for five or six days. It got a bit silly.”

But said he discovered there was a surprisingly heart-warming aspect to the stressful situation. “It was actually also lovely, because the backing I got from the people I work with was beautiful.”

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The row erupted after he posted that the language used by then home secretary over the "stop the boats" asylum policy was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s”.

But after he was suspended, in March 2023, many of his colleagues in BBC Sport refused to stand in for him, including Alex Scott, and , plus Mark Chapman, Gaby Logan and Jermaine Defoe.

Lineker’s remarks were made in new interview show The Assembly, in which stars are quizzed by a group of interviewers who are autistic, neurodivergent or learning disabled.

Under the rules, no question is off the table and everything must be answered. Asked if there was any element of “shove out” from the BBC over his Match of the Day departure, Gary says: “I don’t know, maybe they would have got rid of me anyway. I think it was the right time. You don’t want to overstay your welcome, do you?” Pushed on whether he was actually given the boot, he insists: “No, I wasn’t sacked.”

Questioned about being taken in by Brass Eye’s satire on paedophiles back in 2001, he says: “I wasn’t fooled. They cut out all the stuff where I kept saying ‘this is a joke’. They were quite devious.”

In the programme, made by Chris Morris, Lineker was shown holding up a picture of a hillside, explaining that a tiny blue blob in the middle was actually a child and saying, "If you attempt to show this to a paedophile he will try and attack it in an attempt to get to the child."

But speaking 24 years on, Gary said: “They told me they were with the police and they wanted me to do it, halfway through I thought ‘this is just a scam’. But people found it funny.”

Asked to name the worst person he’s ever worked with he quips: “It’s a shame I’ve never worked with .”

The dad-of-four became choked as he was asked how he felt when eldest son George was diagnosed with cancer as a baby. “That was really tough - it changes you,” he admitted. “He was only two months old. We got told he had leukaemia, he wasn’t given much chance. It was really awful, we were in the hospital for about seven months with him.

“But we were the lucky ones because there were other parents in there that lost their kids so we felt quite fortunate in the end. It was really scary.”

He said he and ex-wife Michelle had coped in different ways. “I felt I needed to talk about it. Michelle, she would bottle things up. But ultimately we got a good ending.”

Lineker told the group that he tells his kids he loves them, despite only hearing it once from his own father, at the very end of his life. “It was different back then,” he sighed. “He did say ‘I love you’ on his deathbed, which made me cry.”

The Assembly’s executive producer Stu Richards said the stars who took part had behaved differently. "It’s really exciting when the celebrity first walks into the room. was incredibly nervous, Danny Dyer over-compensated and started telling everyone how great they looked.”

• The Assembly: Gary Lineker, Sunday, 10pm, ITV1/ITVX