The host of the BBC’s Match of the Day soccer program, Gary Lineker, will be “stepping back” from his duties until an agreement is hammered out on his social media usage after he ignited a firestorm by claiming in a tweet that the UK’s new migrant policy was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s.”
The BBC described Lineker's "recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines,” BBC News reported.
The British broadcaster said that the soccer commentator should have kept “well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies.”
It added that it had participated in “extensive discussions” with Lineker this week. After the consultations, the BBC "decided that he will step back from presenting Match of the Day until we've got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media.”
"When it comes to leading our football and sports coverage, Gary is second to none,” the BBC said. "We have never said that Gary should be an opinion free zone, or that he can't have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies."
Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced on Tuesday that the government was enacting a ban on migrants arriving in the UK illegally from being able to claim asylum status.
Lineker tweeted his reaction to the move, calling it an “immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s".
Braverman, whose husband is Jewish, slammed the tweet as offensive, noting that her family "feel very keenly the impact of the Holocaust.”
She added during an interview on the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast that the tweet "diminishes the unspeakable tragedy [of “the Holocaust].”
Lineker, a former soccer player, has hosted Match of the Day since 1999. He is the BBC’s highest paid personality, with earnings of $1.6 million in 2020-21, according to the broadcaster.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)