Gary Lineker's son George claps back after dad is blasted for return to BBC following row

Gary Lineker’s son hit out at trolls ganging up on his dad after he shared a picture of his return to screens.

Lineker was at the centre of a row about free speech and BBC impartiality because of tweets he posted about Rishi Sunak’s government, specifically the Illegal Migration Bill.

After his tweets, in which the former England and Leicester City player compared the government to ‘1930s Germany’ he was stepped down from his regular role presenting Match of the Day by the broadcaster.

That started a chain reaction with regular presenters and pundits such as Alan Shearer, Ian Wright, Alex Scott, and Jason Muhammad, also stepping back in solidarity.

In the end, Lineker was allowed back onto the TV this evening, sitting in the host’s chair for Manchester City’s 6-0 victory over Burnley in the FA Cup quarter final.

Twitter/@GaryLineker

Before the game at the Etihad, Lineker shared a picture of himself in front of the pitch with the caption: “Ah the joys of being allowed to stick to football."

Much like everything that he’s done this past week or so, that seemed to get under quite a lot of people’s skin.

One person commented: "AND THE PRIZE FOR SMUG T*** OF THE YEAR GOES TO."

However, they didn’t count on Gary’s son George getting involved.

The younger Lineker tweeted back: “Ahh bless you, so bitter.”

Others have chimed in to express their support for Lineker and his chums, with one writing: "Your Dad is an amazing person and that’s what eats these people up.”

Another said: "Brilliant result someone with the guts to stand up."

After last week’s episode of Match of the Day was shown without commentary or presenters because of the ongoing row, it will return this evening – although Mark Chapman will present as Lineker has already done today’s match – with a full cast of characters.

On the earlier broadcast, Alan Shearer took a second to apologise to everyone who missed out on last week’s episode of the regular English football round-up show, taking a second at the start of the show to say: “I just need to clear up – I wanted to say how upset we were that all the audiences who missed out on last weekend."

BBC

He continued: “It was a really difficult situation for everyone concerned,

“Through no fault of their own some people in TV and in radio were put in an impossible position and that wasn’t fair, so it’s good to get back to some sort of normality and be talking about football again.”

“I echo those sentiments” Lineker replied.

In the end, this evening’s return went off without a hitch and it seems as if everything is back to normal once again.

Also, that Erling Haaland is pretty good at footy, eh?