09 March 2023 , 16:30
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Let's get it right - it seems an awful lot of people are really, really annoyed that Gary Lineker earns a large amount of money.
At times this week, I actually thought his full name was £1.35million-a-year Gary Lineker. Like that’s how he had been christened. It seems some people are positively foaming at the mouth that Lineker has expressed his disgust at the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill.
People such as Jonathan Gullis, the charming MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, who, in the House of Commons, decided to heckle Labour’s Tulip Siddiq when she asked a question in relation to 200 asylum-seeking children who had gone missing from a hotel in Brighton earlier this year.
“Well, they shouldn’t have come here illegally,” Gullis called out. Lovely guy, Gullis, a real piece of work.
The campaign to get Lineker sacked - sorry, £1.35million-a-year Lineker sacked - appears to be based on the idea that BBC employees should not voice political allegiances.
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(Technically, Lineker is a freelance but the Beeb is his main employer.)
Oh, and some ridiculous mock outrage about him referencing Germany in the 1930s.
But opposition to what pretty much amounts to the attempted demonisation of refugees is not a political stance, it is a compassionate one.
Surely even BBC presenters can publicly stand up for human rights? Why should Lineker hide his principles?
Gary Lineker will again be on Match of the Day duty this weekend (PA)Should Gary Lineker present Match of the Day on Saturday? Have your say in the comments.
Whether you agree with him or not is up to you but Lineker’s feelings should strike a chord throughout football. And it would be nice to think Lineker’s compassion partly comes from his connection with a game which, at its best, is the most thrilling example of the joys of inclusivity.
How wonderful is it to see Alphonso Davies - born in a Ghanaian refugee camp after his parents fled war in Liberia - perform with such brilliant abandon for Bayern Munich and for Canada, the country which took him in as a child.
Davies is an inspiration, as was Victor Moses when he made it to the top at Chelsea.
An 11-year-old Moses was playing football in the street in Kaduna, Nigeria, when his parents were murdered in religious riots. His father was a pastor. After being hidden by friends for a week his relatives paid for him to travel to the UK to claim asylum.
If this mob in power had their way, Moses would probably have been spun on his heels and sent to Rwanda.
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Changes proposed by the Conservatives would have seen Victor Moses never given the opportunity to shine (Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)Football and refugees have a history, football can be a sanctuary for refugees.
Yes, there are a lot of people who do not share Lineker’s bitter dislike of this Illegal Migration Bill. There are also, it seems, a lot of people who are just bitter that Lineker earns a fortune from the BBC. (Did anyone tell you he is paid £1.35million a year?)
But whatever your personal take on the matter, English football should be proud that one of its finest former players stands for the sort of compassion that should be at the heart and soul of the sport.
And even if the BBC had capitulated and sacked him, that would not have changed.
Good on him.