"Match of the Day" is the name of Great Britain's most important football programme. Hardly anyone would have thought that it could become a political issue about refugee policy and freedom of the press within hours. But that's exactly what happened.
No moderator, no experts
On Saturday, the show, normally presented by England's ex-striker star Gary Lineker, was to do without a presenter and experts, because the 62-year-old had criticized the government on Twitter. The public service BBC saw her independence in danger and had suspended him. The result: experts, TV employees and footballers showed solidarity and plunged the broadcaster into a crisis.
It all began with a tweet by Lineker on Tuesday comparing the conservative government's rhetoric on refugees to Nazi rhetoric from the 1930s.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Interior Minister Suella Braverman had previously presented a bill to deny irregular arrivals the right to asylum. Criticism came not only from the opposition, but also from the UN refugee agency UNHCR, which accused Britain of breaking international obligations.
Braverman and her "invasion"
Right-wing Braverman had previously spoken of an "invasion" of boat people. And this despite the fact that Great Britain takes in only a small number of refugees compared to Germany.
Braverman accused Lineker of trivializing the Holocaust. Several conservative MPs demanded consequences for the ex-footballer. But Lineker did not want to apologize. On Friday, the BBC suspended its highest-paid presenter.
What the institution probably did not expect: His colleagues at "Match of the Day", the ex-football stars Ian Wright and Alan Shearer, announced that they would also not be on the show. Several BBC colleagues joined in. The footballers' union PFA backed Premier League players who did not want to give interviews to the show. Other sports broadcasts on radio and TV also had to be cancelled.
Lineker is a football icon like Jürgen Klinsmann or Rudi Völler in Germany. The 62-year-old ex-striker often quoted the sentence: "Football is a simple game. 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and in the end the Germans win." He has been the face of "Match of the Day" for more than 20 years.
He spoke out against Brexit
Lineker also has 8.8 million followers on Twitter and has shared political views in the past that clashed with the opinion of the Conservative government in London. Above all, the self-employed presenter for the BBC spoke out openly against Brexit and thus made powerful enemies among the Tories.
The BBC has been under pressure from Brexit supporters and right-wing populists in the Tory party for years. According to them, the public broadcaster is interspersed with left-leaning journalists representing an urban elite. Actions such as the Lineker case seem like anticipatory obedience on the part of the BBC to circumvent such criticism.
It is only the latest in a long series of clashes in which top journalists have turned their backs on the BBC. In addition, the government repeatedly threatened to abolish the broadcasting fees. A freezing of contributions has already led to painful rounds of savings.
Media experts see the Tories' constant criticism of the BBC as an attempt to break the independence of public broadcasting. Former BBC journalist Emily Maitlis vented her frustration at a lecture last year: "We see politicians taking a direction that is deeply and clearly damaging to our basic democratic government," Maitlis said. If one side constantly tells the untruth, you have to call it by its name, she demanded.
"BBC has undermined their credibility"
In the current dispute over the Lineker suspension, former BBC Director General Greg also gave the institution a bad report. "The real problem today is that the BBC has undermined its own credibility by doing that. Because from the outside it looks like she has bowed to government pressure," told BBC 4 radio.
According to some critics, the BBC is in the grip of government sympathizers. For example, there were no consequences when it was revealed that the current BBC chairman Richard Sharp had provided a personal loan to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was in office at the time of his hire, without stating this as a conflict of interest.