The BBC has hit back at former Tottenham England forward Gary Lineker after he mocked the company for mocking his decision to remain in England for the World Cup.
Gary Lineker quit the BBC last year (Image: PA)
The BBC’s sports director appears to have hit back at Gary Lineker, insisting the new ‘work from home’ World Cup studio is not a ‘green box in Salford’.
Back in April, former BBC presenter Lineker mocked the company and its decision not to build a base in the US. The 65-year-old added that leaving the company allowed him to spend the World Cup in New York, and said he had no regrets about missing out on anchor coverage of this summer’s tournament.
And in mid-May, BBC presenter Gabby Logan staunchly defended the BBC’s decision to remain in the UK until the final week of the five-and-a-half week tournament. She cited the “extremely high cost” of moving her studio to the United States for the start of the World Cup, and insisted that not having to be there would not “negatively affect coverage.”
On Tuesday, six weeks after Lineker’s remarks and two days before the start of the tournament, BBC sports director Alex Kagelski threw the door wide open for this year’s World Cup.
Green screen backdrops were nowhere to be seen, as the BBC instead invested in state-of-the-art studios with huge panoramic screens. This setting creates the illusion that the studio is looking down on one of the 16 World Cup host cities, including Mexico City and New York, from which the match is being broadcast.
I’ve even placed a fan near the screen to blow air and mimic a breeze. This will take place alongside augmented reality capabilities in the 360-degree, part-reality, part-virtual setup where BBC presenters and pundits, including Rogan and Mark Chapman, will be based until the final weeks of this summer’s World Cup.
Lineker was due to host the BBC’s coverage of the tournament until his resignation was confirmed in 2025 after he shared a social media post featuring a rat emoji, which has been used in anti-Semitic propaganda. The former Tottenham and England forward has signed a £14m deal with Netflix to present his podcast ‘The Rest is Football’ from his New York studio, which is due to launch this week.
Gary Lineker has been with the BBC for 26 years (Image: PA)
On April 30, Mr Lineker boasted that he would visit the US for the World Cup and have “views of Times Square”, but his former employers remain “in a green box in Salford”.
But Kay Jelski said on Tuesday: “This is not a green box in Salford. It’s a beautiful, state-of-the-art studio. No one has ever seen it before. It’s perfectly fine to envision what will become of what has been before. And I’m really proud of this.”
“I don’t think the actual end product that people have in their homes is that different,” Kay Jelski added. “If these people were sitting in a different place, would your perspective change much?
“If I were to stand here and say, ‘Everything will be done in a studio in Dallas,’ you would naturally say to me, ‘How can you justify that expense?’
The first World Cup match is scheduled to take place between hosts Mexico and South Korea on Thursday, with the BBC’s first match expected to be Friday’s Group B opener between Canada and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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