Gary Lineker is to step down as the presenter of Match of the Day at the end of the season, it has been confirmed.
The BBC confirmed earlier reports that Lineker would stay with the broadcaster to cover the 2026 Fifa World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico, but step back from the highlights programme at the end of the 2024-25 season.
The former England striker, 63, took over in the chair from Des Lynam in 1999, and has been a presence on football fans’ screens on Saturday nights for 25 years.
He joked about leaving the BBC during an episode of Match of the Day in October, during a time of intense speculation about his future. Lineker introduced the show saying: “Hello. Seven games on the way and it’s my final show … before the international break.”
He was nominated for a National Television award for his work on Match of the Day in 2017. Lineker is one of the corporation’s best-known presenters and has been its highest-paid on-air star for seven consecutive years, earning £1.35m a year.
He was taken off air by the BBC in March 2023 after writing on X that the language used by the government to launch a policy on small boat crossings was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.
But Lineker was reinstated after some of his colleagues pulled out of shows in solidarity. .
More details soon …