Lineker: BBC boss said I could speak out over refugees

GARY Lineker has claimed he had an agreement with BBC director-general Tim Davie giving him freedom to tweet about refugees.

The Match Of The Day presenter yesterday made his first detailed comments about the crisis he sparked at the corporation when he tweeted comparing the Government’s language in its migration crackdown to that in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

He was temporarily taken off air by the BBC for breaching its impartiality guidelines, but this led to fellow presenters also pulling out of sports coverage in solidarity.

In a podcast released yesterday, the former England striker, pictured, was unrepentant about the row, saying his comments were ‘true’ and ‘factual’ and he didn’t ‘think that impartiality comes into it’.

Lineker, appearing on the The Rest Is Politics podcast, added that he had not regarded the tweet as ‘ particularly controversial’. The Rest Is Politics is fronted by former Tory MP Rory Stewart and former Labour communications chief Alastair Campbell. It is produced by company Goalhanger Podcasts, in which Lineker owns shares. Mr Campbell was one of Lineker’s biggest supporters during the row. Lineker said he had a deal with BBC boss Mr Davie effectively giving him immunity from the impartiality guidelines on two specific topics. He said: ‘When I met Tim Davie when he first brought in his guidelines, we had a discussion and I said to Tim, “There are two things that I’ll continue to talk up on – I will not back down on”. And he agreed. One of them was about the refugee crisis and the other one was about climate change.’

His tweet this month was in response to the Government’s Bill stopping migrants arriving across the Channel in small boats from being able to claim asylum.

He wrote: ‘We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.’ On the podcast Lineker, who is the BBC’s highest paid star on £1.35million a year, denied his tweet had been comparing the Government’s policy to the Nazis.

He said: ‘That was not the case. It was not the case. I was just talking about some of the language.’

He cited use of the words such as ‘invasion’ and ‘swarms’ as examples of the language was ‘not dissimilar’ from Germany in the 30s.

A BBC source said last night: ‘No one has said he can’t have a view on certain issues, he just has to stick to the guidance.’