Daily Mail: Pressure grows on BBC to sanction Gary Lineker

Story from Daily Mail:

Pressure is growing on the BBC to sanction Gary Lineker after the presenter reposted a call for Israel to be punished by FIFA.

The Match of the Day presenter, 63, reposted a statement on X from a pro-Palestinian campaign calling for Israel to be removed from all global tournaments 'until it ends its grave violations of international law' - in relation to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Conservative MPs have ordered the BBC to sanction the star as they wait for 'international diplomat and foreign policy expert, Gary Lineker' to hold Hamas to account for their atrocities during the Israel-Hamas war.

It comes after a string of impartiality rows to consume the BBC over its coverage of the ongoing conflict - also following the backlash of Lineker comparing Suella Braverman's language in support of her Rwanda policy to the language by Nazi Germany last year.

The post Lineker reposted yesterday was created by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel.

The statement included paragraphs from the Palestinian Football Association which urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and FIFA to align with other sporting bodies in sanctioning Israel from competitions.

The statement ordered that they 'take an urgent stance towards Israel's grave violations of human rights and subject it to legal accountability measures'.

The post added that officials and the public should place pressure on FIFA and the IOC 'to suspend Israel's membership and ban it from international tournaments and games until it ends its grave violations of international law'.

Jewish Tory MP Andrew Percy told The Telegraph: 'Gary Lineker is an ill-informed, ignorant commentator on the Middle East.

'The BDS movement [to boycott Israel] is a racist, anti-Semitic campaign and nobody who receives taxpayers' money working in the BBC should be endorsing a campaign that is widely understood to promote Jew hate.'

Stephen Crabb, a former Cabinet minister and the parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel, said: 'This a deeply inappropriate tweet for any BBC figure to endorse, and especially for someone of Lineker's prominence.

A BBC source told MailOnline: 'We aren't going to give a commentary on individuals or individual tweets.'