Gary Lineker has admitted he has had a “strange few days” following speculation over his future hosting BBC’s Match of the Day.
The 63-year-old has been the face of the programme for more than 20 years and has been at the helm during its heyday as the go-to football highlights show on British television.
Lineker’s contract comes to an end at the conclusion of the current football season, with national publication MailOnline reporting last week that they had seen an internal email from BBC bosses preparing for the former Everton and Tottenham striker’s departure from the show.
The corporation denied that was the case and Lineker has now revealed that contract talks with the Beeb have “just started”.
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On Match of the Day on Saturday night the presenter joked it was his last show – quickly adding “before the international break”. On Monday he told his The Rest is Football podcast co-hosts Micah Richards and Alan Shearer it had been a “strange few days”, adding “there are bigger problems in the world, that’s for sure.”
“It’s been a strange few days – as you know, like (Liverpool stars) Trent (Alexander-Arnold), Virgil (van Dijk) and Mo (Salah), I’m coming to the end of my contract in the summer so it’s natural at some point you have to have conversations and they have just started,” he said.
“I don’t know why it all spiralled out of control. All is OK.”
Lineker remains the BBC’s highest-paid star – he is estimated to have earned £1.35million in the financial year 2023-24, according to the corporation’s annual report published this summer. That’s around £500,000 more than his nearest colleague, Zoe Ball.
That salary goes someway to contribute to his considerable net worth, which is believed to be in the range of £30million. His earnings on the screen will have more than likely dwarfed what he earned on the pitch, despite turning out for world-famous teams like Barcelona.
Post-football retirement, Lineker has worked for BT Sport, NBC and Al Jazeera television stations, while he also has had a longstanding commercial association with Walkers crisps.
Away from the screen, Lineker has four sons who he shares with ex-wife Michelle Cockayne. They married in 1986 and his children – George, Harry, Tobias and Angus – are all now grown up. Lineker and Michelle divorced 20 years after tying the knot, with the latter citing “unreasonable behaviour” as grounds for their separation.
Lineker married second wife, Cardiff-born model Danielle Bux, in 2009 after meeting as the result of a blind date in 2007. However, they too would go their different ways in 2016, with a difference of opinion over children said to be the root cause.
The two have remained friends, however,
Speaking to our sister publication the Mirror in September 2019, Lineker said: “Danielle and I are best mates, we still speak three times a day, we text all the time. When she comes to London she stays with me, and when I go to LA I see her.”
Recalling their conversation about starting a family, he told the Times in the same year: “Obviously I would have done, but she said, ‘It’s not fair on you.’ Then I said, ‘Well, I’d feel terrible if I stop you doing it.'”
Danielle has since married Nate Greenwald and the two share a daughter, Ella, together. “He’s not got a jealous bone in his body,” Lineker said to the Radio Times of Nate. “We get on really well. We go out for dinner when I’m in LA.
“It might be unusual and people might go, ‘That’s weird’ but, frankly, I don’t care. What is normal? Is it better to get divorced and end up fighting, screaming and shouting? Or is it better to get on if you can?”
Lineker’s subsequent love life has been the subject of frequent column inches in the media; he was linked to chef Gizzi Erskine in 2019 after the pair were pictured partying backstage at All Points East festival, and more recently to Jemima Goldsmith, the ex-wife of former cricketer and Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan. Both rumours were denied.
The Leicester-born star opened up about his love life to The Times last year, confirming he was single at the time. “I’m single. I am single,” he told The Times: “I like being on my own. I know it sounds a bit mad. I have lots of company. I’ve got lots of friends and I’ve also got my boys… I don’t feel lonely. I have the odd date here and there but nothing serious in terms of a long relationship.
“I’ve been married most of my adult life. Two really good marriages, I’m friends with both,” he added. “I’m not saying whether it’ll change. It might do. I don’t know. But at the minute I’m very comfortable.”
