Gary Lineker

[alta-pete]

That reads very much like you didn’t get your hole this morning. 

[doulikefish]

4 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

That reads very much like you didn’t get your hole this morning. 

10 days til my birthday 

[btb]

The elephant in the room, unless I've missed someone else pointing it out, is whether the the suspension of Lineker is entirely the BBCs idea or whether the Govt. is egging them on in the background.

If it's the former then I expect it'll be over by next weekend, if it's part of the larger Woke War it could drag on with people lining up in their respective echo chambers. 

[throbber]

1 hour ago, Binos said:

If only 

Actually if you don’t catch motd on Saturday then you have 730 on Sunday morning then can’t get it on I player until Tuesday as sky sports has Monday night football to show goals second.

[Mark Connolly]

3 minutes ago, btb said:

The elephant in the room, unless I've missed someone else pointing it out, is whether the the suspension of Lineker is entirely the BBCs idea or whether the Govt. is egging them on in the background.

If it's the former then I expect it'll be over by next weekend, if it's part of the larger Woke War it could drag on with people lining up in their respective echo chambers. 

It's yet another outstanding diversion that allows the Govt to continue to be absolute fucking scumbags, while shouting "Look at what the nasty man said!"

[Highland Capital]

52 minutes ago, Moomintroll said:

Wright is a xenophobic, little englander, arsehole who should have been sent off 5 seconds into his ra cellick debut. He sees nuffink about nuffink & dont wanna talk abaht nuffink if it effects Ingerlund. Yet I am still on his side here.

There’s at least three different accents used in this post and I for one am impressed. 

[Venti]

Just watch MotD on the iPlayer & skip through fannies like Lineker, Shearer & Wright.

[Sergeant Wilson]

l pay practically no attention to pundits unless there's a real fall out. I still prefer them to be there to break it up a bit and sometimes create talking points, same with commentators.

[Highland Capital]

1 hour ago, The Master said:

It emerged yesterday that the BBC don’t have the rights to use the world feed commentary. 

I think it's still unclear.  They're using world feed commentators for the WSL game today.  When the Denmark-Finland Euro 2020 match restarted after Christian Eriksen collapsed the BBC used world feed commentators as well.  I can imagine they negotiated overnight for the WSL but the Denmark game was only a couple of hours.

[Trogdor]

Unfortunately I didn't watch the truncated MOTD or the GB News tribute act last night.

I wasn't breaking the habit of a lifetime, its been a long time since I watched MOTD with any kind of frequency. I can't be bothered with all the waffle and pish. The insights from the pundits are really just statement of the obvious most of the time. 

I do like Micah Richards, he seems like a good laugh though.

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, Lurkst said:

I thought the truncated MOTD was crap.

Yes, I just watched it there.  It was rubbish.

It didn't lend itself to casual viewing, which is something you should be able to do with highlights programmes, where you're not invested in the outcome.

Fair play to the commentators on this one.  It could probably have gone ahead reasonably successfully without Lineker and the other pundits, but without commentary and the context it provides, the programme was hopeless.

I'd respectfully suggest that anyone claiming last night's programme was better than the regular output, is not being entirely honest.

 

[The Master]

6 minutes ago, Highland Capital said:

I think it's still unclear.  They're using world feed commentators for the WSL game today.  When the Denmark-Finland Euro 2020 match restarted after Christian Eriksen collapsed the BBC used world feed commentators as well.  I can imagine they negotiated overnight for the WSL but the Denmark game was only a couple of hours.

Different competitions have different clauses in their rights agreements. 

[Ludo*1]

Sky's presentation of the highlights are just superior to MotD these days. They stick them up on YT not long after the game has finished - most of the time have a commentator (which I've previously stated doesn't put me up nor down) - and it gets rid of all the needless waffling in between the games.

Lineker is very good at what he does and I'm on his side and I think MotD is poorer when someone is filling in for Lineker, but I'd honestly prefer a show that just cuts straight to the football and maybe has a tiny bit of analysis. According to Wikipedia, most episodes of MotD are 105 minutes long. When all the football content can be covered in 20 - there's really not a need for an hour and twenty-five minutes of analysis.

An example of the stuff Sky produce:

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by Ludo*1

[cyderspaceman]

Saturday's Match of the Day was reduced to 20 minutes with no presenter, pundits, or commentary

Viewing figures for Saturday's show were up by half a million, to more than 2.5m

[Ludo*1]

Just now, cyderspaceman said:

Saturday's Match of the Day was reduced to 20 minutes with no presenter, pundits, or commentary

Viewing figures for Saturday's show were up by half a million, to more than 2.5m

Context of that though is that more people than usual tuned in just to watch the spectacle after the build up to 'What are they gonna do?!'

It's the first time I've watched it in a long time and probably the only other time I'll go out of my way to tune in will be the first episode of Lineker's return.

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 minutes ago, cyderspaceman said:

Saturday's Match of the Day was reduced to 20 minutes with no presenter, pundits, or commentary

Viewing figures for Saturday's show were up by half a million, to more than 2.5m

That won't last.

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, btb said:

The elephant in the room, unless I've missed someone else pointing it out, is whether the the suspension of Lineker is entirely the BBCs idea or whether the Govt. is egging them on in the background.

If it's the former then I expect it'll be over by next weekend, if it's part of the larger Woke War it could drag on with people lining up in their respective echo chambers. 

I don’t think it matters.  The backlash is far greater than any of those in power could have imagined and every effort will be made to bring it to a swift conclusion.  There’s no benefit to the Tories in dragging this out.

How can an organisation as large as the BBC with so many highly paid executives not anticipate the possible outcome?

[oneteaminglasgow]

Punditry after every game and on highlights shows like MOTD is worth putting up for for the spectacle we get every couple of years when England get papped out another major tournament.

[btb]

5 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I don’t think it matters.  The backlash is far greater than any of those in power could have imagined and every effort will be made to bring it to a swift conclusion.  There’s no benefit to the Tories in dragging this out.

How can an organisation as large as the BBC with so many highly paid executives not anticipate the possible outcome?

I hope you're correct but I'm not sure I agree, I took a drip to the darkside (The Daily Mail) and their readers seemed outraged by Lineker and demanding that the License fee be revoked. Like I said we're all retreating to our respective echo chambers which is where the next GE will largely be fought.

[Soapy FFC]

1 hour ago, Dev said:

Of course, one thing which is surely correct is that he would have been extremely well paid during his playing days so, presumably again, he became a millionaire. He seems to have benefitted from his popularity to become a freelance TV presenter rather than a paid BBC employee (assuming, again, that there was that option). Allegedly being freelance may have significant (lawful) benefits when dealing with the Taxman. Do we have yet another freeloader millionaire in the UK Tax system?

Just a thought! I know that I don't like tax freeloading maybe others think he's worth it?

It irks me a lot when millionaires or relatively wealthy people use things like self employed status to reduce tax liability. I worked for over 30 years in the oil industry and saw more than my fair share of self employed people working as though they were full time employees, with many unwilling to become employees due to tax and other benefits they had being self employed. As with Lineker, everything they were doing was legal and above board, so why given the choice wouldn’t they stay self employed to use the rules and regulations to their advantage.

The problem with freeloading millionaires is not the individuals per se, but the rules that are in place that allow them to ‘freeload’. The government should change the rules to make these benefits less attractive, then we wouldn’t have to complain about people choosing to follow rules that are to their advantage.