Featured Image Credit: Mark Pain / Alamy Stock Photo/Liam Asman/Sport Press Photo via ZUMA Press
Topics: Gary Lineker, Sport, Football, Twitter
Joe Harker
Topics: Gary Lineker, Sport, Football, Twitter
Former England footballer turned TV presenter and poster boy for Walkers crisps Gary Lineker has been forced to delete a tweet about the Lionesses winning the Euro 2022 final.
England beat Germany 2-1 in a thrilling match that went to extra time before Chloe Kelly's late goal saw the Lionesses through to victory.
It's the first major trophy an England team has won since 1966 and the whole nation is in a jubilant mood, perhaps best personified by the squad storming into Sarina Wiegman's post match press conference chanting 'it's coming home'.
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Amidst all the celebrations Lineker tweeted that 'Kelly is England's hero, bra none', a reference to the England forward taking off her shirt to celebrate scoring what turned out to be the winning goal.
He ended up deleting his tweet after a backlash against his comments from fans and pundits, explaining that it was 'just a play on words given the celebration'.
Lineker explained that he deleted his tweet as many people had 'missed the context' and said he does 'rubbish like that constantly' on the social media site.
There has been plenty of negative reaction to the tweet, as journalist Flo Lloyd-Hughes wrote: "Ew. From a man that has had so much power and influence and never used it to support women's football. Yikes!"
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Someone else told Lineker to 'give your head a wobble', while another said the former footballer's tweet had been 'most unwise'.
A third person said Lineker's comments 'minimise this glory down to a joke about women's clothing/underwear' after an 'epic win' that's going to be 'such a game changer for women's sport'.
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Others were more supportive of Lineker, with some commenters arguing that it was just a joke that they thought was 'superb', with another saying 'hats off' to the former footballer for thinking of the pun.
The rest of Lineker's tweets about the game both before and after England's brilliant final win were full of praise for the Lionesses, including a new take on his classic quote that football is a game where '22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end the Germans win', now adapted to say '22 women chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end England actually win'.
He also praised Lionesses forward Beth Mead for becoming the fifth English player to win the Golden Boot at a major international tournament.
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Mead finished the tournament with six goals, tied with Germany's Alexandra Popp, but her larger total of assists secured her the personal accolade.
Lineker himself is a member of that exclusive list thanks to his six goals in the 1986 World Cup, while Jodie Taylor, Harry Kane and Alan Shearer rounded out the group of Golden Boot winners.