GARY Lineker yesterday laughed off the Match of the Day “porn noise” scandal — and said he took great pleasure filling his half-time analysis with sex-filled innuendo.
The presenter said the BBC has had to look at its security measures following YouTuber Daniel “Jarvo” Jarvis’s stunt.
But Gary, 62, who memorably had an on-pitch “accident” during England’s 1990 World Cup opener, joked: “If you told me yesterday morning that I’d be on the front page of The Sun, involved with a porn scandal, I’d have s*** myself — again!”
Gary added: “I thought it was funny, and the YouTube prankster has shown his work.
“It was that loud that I couldn’t really hear myself think, or what the other guys were saying, and realised people could probably hear it at home so I knew I had to both keep it together, whilst also addressing the matter.
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“In these situations, you have to keep your head.
“Yes, it’s funny but you can’t overwhelm the show — you can’t ignore it.
“But, and after the studio manager had located the strap-on phone, I started to have a bit of fun with it all.
“So at half-time every question I asked about the analysis, my comments were some kind of reference to it.
“Things like ‘Wolves huffed and puffed’ or ‘the only goal was a screamer — and not the only screamer we had’, and ‘Liverpool pressed really hard in trying to get behind them’ — all that kind of thing.
“It was daft but it really did amuse me. And once I realised it was a prank, I knew that if I started laughing I probably wouldn’t have stopped.
“It was the most surreal and one of the strangest things I’ve ever encountered in broadcasting.”
Prankster Jarvo, a serial pitch invader, had broken into the studio and activated a sexy sounds ring tone on a mobile phone, which he hid on the set.
He then called the phone during Gary’s studio segments at the Wolves v Liverpool FA Cup replay at Molineux on Tuesday.
The BBC later issued a po-faced apology.
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But Gary questioned that decision.
He said: “I’m not sure why the BBC apologised because it’s not our fault obviously.
“It’s a security issue, and there is a serious side to it; if someone can do that, they can do something else with something that could be more dangerous.
“But, in this instance, I felt that universally people were finding it really funny.
“And actually I have to agree with them, even if it was at our expense.
“It was enjoyed, I think . . . much like those people on that phone!”
