During the football season, at times more than sixty percent of the British population tune in on Saturday to the BBC's "Match of the Day", which has been running since 1964, to watch the highlights of the English top league. The BBC describes this national institution as the most famous football programme in the world. It is considered the longest running football television program ever. According to surveys, the title tune has the highest recognition value of a television show.

No theme tune, no comments

Gina Thomas

Feuilleton correspondent based in London.

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On Saturday night, the theme tune and comments were missing. The show, which otherwise lasted eighty minutes, was reduced to twenty minutes. The majority of BBC football broadcasts on television and radio were cancelled at the weekend because presenters, commentators and football players refused to cooperate in solidarity with suspended star presenter Gary Lineker.

The BBC has been battered by many crises, most dramatically twenty years ago in the dispute over the Iraq dossiers used by the Blair government to justify military intervention against Saddam Hussein. At the time, BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan accused the government of knowingly exaggerating intelligence.

Whether Labour or the Tories, the BBC is under criticism

Gilligan's remarks in a radio interview led to the resignation of BBC Director General Greg and BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies in January 2004. In the dispute, the public broadcaster was in direct conflict with the Labour government. Whether Labour or the Conservatives are in power, the question of perceived bias has always been a point of contention between the government and the contribution-funded body. Now the BBC, including opposition leader Keir Starmer, is accused of bowing to pressure from "whining Tories".

These politicians, who attribute the station to what they disparagingly call the "liberal elite," are being incited by conservative media organizations, above all the Daily Mail and the Telegraph. They use rhetoric on the asylum issue that is also arousing deep unease in some conservative circles. Home Secretary Suella Braverman caused offence when she wrote in the Daily Mail last week under the headline "The British people have had enough" that there are "a hundred million displaced people in the world and probably billions more eager to come here if possible".

In this climate, the Lineker tweet has acted like a sting in the wasp's nest, on the one hand because of the sensitive asylum issue, on the other hand because of the dispute over the independence of the BBC. The swarm, alarmed by Lineker, illustrates the growing polarization since Brexit and the escalation of the so-called "culture wars". In this competitive field, the BBC has long been a hot topic. The nerves are raw on all sides, especially since the BBC has to fear for its future as a fee-financed broadcaster. It has never experienced such a mutiny in its hundred-year history. With a tweet, the former captain of the English football team, who is the highest paid BBC presenter with 1.35 million pounds, has not only put his own future at the station at risk, but also that of the current leadership.