Coverage Disruptions at BBC Deepen as Gary Lineker’s Crisis Continues

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The BBC had another day of problems with their sports coverage on Sunday. This was because many people in the staff stopped working to support Gary Lineker, a soccer host who had been suspended after he tweeted something bad about the British government’s plan for refugees. People are asking the bosses at the BBC to quit their jobs because they think they’re too biased and that they don’t let people speak freely.

The BBC stopped Gary Lineker, a very respected soccer player in England and the highest paid employee at the BBC, from working last Friday after he tweeted something about how British government’s new policy on immigration was similar to language used by Nazi Germany.

The Conservative government wants to prevent migrants from coming to Britain in small boats by passing laws that take away the rights of asylum seekers. These laws would mean that asylum seekers are put into detention centres, sent back home, and not allowed to come back to Britain again.

Immigration has been a major issue in the U.K. since the Brexit referendum of 2016. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to keep people from crossing the English Channel illegally, but his plans have been criticized by refugee organizations and human rights groups who don’t agree with them.

Lineker got punished and a lot of people from the BBC who work in sports shows/news were so mad that they refused to go to work on Saturday. They did it to show how much they disagreed with Lineker’s punishment.

Because of some changes, a lot of soccer games that were set to air during the day got canceled really quickly. “Match of the Day,” which has been popular with people in Britain since the 1960s and features highlights from different Premier League games from that day, went on air with no commentary but with shortened footage. Normally this show runs for about an hour and a half, but Saturday’s only lasted for 20 minutes.

This weekend, there won’t be any presenters on the Women’s Super League and “Match of the Day 2”. The BBC director-general, Tim Davie, said he was sorry that people couldn’t watch these shows and promised that they were working hard to fix it.

Gary Lineker is one of the most famous people in Britain and was paid 1.6 million dollars by the BBC last year. He was a popular soccer player for England and has scored 48 goals in 80 games he played. Even before he became a TV presenter on the show Match of the Day in 1999, people already recognized him as a celebrity.

On Tuesday a tweet was posted which said that the government’s plan to get rid of people coming by boat was “very mean”. It was similar to what Germany did during the 1930s. The Conservative party were very mad at this and some people said that person who wrote – Gary Lineker, should be fired.

The BBC is a 100-year-old organisation that everyone with a television pays money to. People have been discussing if the BBC remains neutral ​recently when they found out that Richard Sharp, who works there and also donates money to the Conservative Party, gave Boris Johnson (the Prime Minister in 2021) some money shortly before he started working for the BBC which was recommended by the government.

You can find soccer news from the Associated Press (AP) on two websites – https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports.