Gary Lineker, the prominent BBC sports broadcaster and former England soccer star, issued an "unreserved apology" on Wednesday for reposting an Instagram story concerning Zionism that disturbingly featured an image of a rat, The Associated Press reported.
Lineker, 64, stated that he had shared material which he subsequently learned contained "offensive references." He confirmed the post was withdrawn as soon as he became aware of its problematic nature.
"I take full responsibility for this mistake," Lineker declared, as quoted by AP. "I would never knowingly share anything antisemitic. It goes against everything I believe in."
The controversy erupted on Tuesday when Lineker shared a post from the "Palestine Lobby" group. The post, illustrated with a rat, was titled: "Zionism explained in two minutes." The use of rats to depict Jews is a classic antisemitic trope, notoriously employed by Nazi propaganda in 1930s Germany to associate Jewish people with disease and filth.
In his apology on Wednesday, Lineker commented, "Whilst I strongly believe in the importance of speaking out on humanitarian issues, including the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, I also know that how we do so matters."
Lineker, a former England soccer player, was taken off air by bosses at the BBC in March of 2023 after comparing the launch of the Conservatives' new policy to the rhetoric of Nazi-era Germany. He was back on the air a week later.
In 2024, Lineker came under fire from MPs and Jewish leaders after retweeting a call for Israel to be banned from international soccer games.
Prior to Lineker's apology, BBC Director-General Tim Davie remarked on the importance of upholding the broadcaster's reputation.
"Our reputation is held by everyone and when someone makes a mistake, it costs us," Davie stated, according to AP. "And I think we absolutely need people to be the exemplars of BBC values and follow our social media policies, simple as that."
The Campaign Against Antisemitism has strongly urged Davie to dismiss Lineker. A spokesperson for the organization asserted, "As the BBC’s highest-paid presenter and owner of a major media enterprise, maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing. Having looked the other way until now, at this point, it is clear that Mr. Lineker’s continued association with the BBC is untenable. He must go."
The BBC has long been criticized for its blatant anti-Israel bias. This criticism has increased since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the war in Gaza which followed.
In November of 2023, the corporation published an apology after falsely claiming that IDF troops were targeting medical teams in battles in and around the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
Before that, the BBC falsely accused Israel of being responsible for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, which the IDF proved was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket. The network later acknowledged that “it was false to speculate” on the explosion.
This past September, a report found that the BBC violated its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the first four months of the war between Israel and Hamas, and noted “deeply worrying pattern of bias" against the Jewish state during that period.
In March, the British corporation issued an apology after using footage of the Israeli city of Tiberias - located well within Israel's internationally recognized borders - while discussing "settlements" in the Golan Heights.
