Gary Lineker row hits BBC’s Match of the Day 2 and WSL coverage

theguardian.com:

The BBC is expected to severely reduce a second day of sports programming amid a deepening row over the suspension of Gary Lineker.

The corporation is poised to cut back Match of the Day 2 and coverage of the Women’s Super League match between Manchester United and Chelsea after a mass walkout by BBC stars.

The broadcaster is facing its most serious crisis in years after a series of high-profile presenters, commentators and pundits refused to appear on air because of Lineker’s suspension for criticising the government’s immigration policy.

The extraordinary walkout forced the BBC to drastically cut most of its weekend football coverage for the first time in recent memory. It came as:

The BBC chair, Richard Sharp, was facing growing calls to stand down over his ties to the Conservative party, as Labour and the Liberal Democrats said he was unfit to oversee the broadcaster during an impartiality crisis.

Lineker’s son, George Lineker, said his father would not apologise for his tweet comparing language used to set out the government’s immigration plans to “that used by Germany in the 30s”. He suggested his father could leave the BBC at the end of his contract in 2025.

Mark Thompson, the former BBC director general, said Lineker appeared to have committed a “technical” breach of impartiality rules but that the tweets fell into a “grey area” and had “kidnapped” the debate away from immigration policy.

The mass walkout of BBC stars forced the corporation to axe most of the weekend’s prime-time football coverage, cancelling Football Focus and Final Score and reducing Match of the Day to a 20-minute compilation of highlights without punditry or analysis.

Viewing figures on Sunday revealed that the Match of the Day audience remained