Gary Lineker has removed a social media post calling for Israel to be banned from international football, having apparently misunderstood the message he shared.
The Match of the Day presenter retweeted a pro-Palestinian campaign calling for Israel to be barred from tournaments and games over “its grave violations of international law”.
Lineker has removed his retweet following a backlash from MPs angered by the BBC star’s “ill-informed” and “inappropriate” use of social media.
It is understood that the former England international did not understand what he was sharing, according to sources, and believed he was sharing a news article about Israel being banned, rather than a demand for a ban.
His deletion of the message is unusual, as the presenter refused to remove a controversial post from March 2023 in which he compared the Government’s messaging on its migrant policy to rhetoric from “1930s’ Germany”.
‘An ill-informed, ignorant commentator’
The former striker’s most recent controversy was provoked when he shared a post put out by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which included a statement from the Palestinian Football Association.
The statement called on Fifa and the International Olympic Committee to sanction Israel, urging officials to “suspend Israel’s membership and ban it from international tournaments and games until it ends its grave violations of international law, particularly its apartheid rule and the crime of genocide it is perpetuating in Gaza”.
Israel’s military action in Gaza was provoked by Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians on Oct 7 which left 1,200 dead.
Lineker’s wading into the debate surrounding the conflict was condemned by Andrew Percy, a prominent Jewish Tory MP, who branded the presenter “an ill-informed, ignorant commentator on the Middle East”.
He added: “The BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement is a racist, anti-Semitic campaign and nobody who receives taxpayers’ money working in the BBC should be endorsing a campaign that is widely understood to promote Jew hate.
“There has to be a line where the BBC has to intervene and him endorsing a racist campaign, which is what the BDS group is widely understood to be, surely must be a new low if they’re going to allow him to get away with that.”
Stephen Crabb, the parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel, said the call for a sports boycott was a “deeply inappropriate tweet for any BBC figure to endorse”.
It is understood that Lineker assured the BBC that he did not mean to endorse the boycott.
The presenter believed he was sharing a news story about such a boycott, rather than a call for it to be brought about, and deleted his retweet when he realised his error.
Samir Shah, the incoming BBC chairman, recently told MPs that he wanted to find a conclusive “solution” to the cycle of rows involving the Match of the Day presenter.
Last year Lineker signed an open letter criticising the Government’s Rwanda policy, and used X to apparently mock Tory MPs.