BBC presenter Gary Lineker returned to the air on Saturday to host the FA Cup, English football's most important broadcast.
"It's good to be here," he said, without referring to the removal from the video after a tweet critical of the government's migration policy.
Lineker was reinstated by the BBC on Monday and returned to the studio along with fellow former footballers Alan Shearer and Micah Richards for Manchester City's FA Cup quarter-final against Burnley at the Etihad Stadium.
Shearer, who along with other commentators had chosen not to air last week, wanted to address the issue: "I just wanted to clarify and say how sorry we were for all the viewers who missed the program last weekend", he said "it was a really difficult situation for everyone involved. Through no fault of their own, some amazing people from television and radio were put in an impossible situation. And it wasn't fair. So it's nice to go back to some sort of normality and talk about football again."
Lineker replied: "Absolutely. I associate myself with these feelings."
Before going on air, Lineker had posted on Twitter a photo of himself at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester with the caption: "Ah, the joy of being able to continue to cover football".
He was also photographed greeting former Labour journalist and spin doctor Alastair Campbell, a Burnley fan and creator of Britain's most important political podcast, The Rest Is Politics, produced by Lineker's Goalhanger Podcasts.
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Gary Lineker and Alastair Campbell
Marc Chapman, host of Match of The Day 2 (the Sunday sports show) who last week aired for just 20 minutes without commentary or analysis in the studio, as a sign of solidarity with Lineker, also intervened on the broadcast.
Explaining his unusual appearance on Saturday, Chapman said, "Before you ask, I was booked for this weeks ago."
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Gary Lineker ahead of live coverage for the English FA Cup quarter-finals between Manchester City and Burnley, Etihad stadium in Manchester
The Lineker case
Popular commentator and former footballer Gary Lineker was "pulled" from the video after a tweet criticizing the Sunak government's migrant policies.
Always committed to human rights, Lineker, who has hosted refugees in his home in the past, in a post on Twitter compared the words of Interior Minister Suella Braverman against the landings of migrants on British shores "to the language of Nazi Germany".
In response, the BBC, claiming the violation of internal rules on political impartiality, suspended him "until a clear and shared position is found on the use of social media by the presenter".
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Gary Lineker on the field in 1986 during the World Cup in Mexico
The measure had led to the interruption of the sports program Match Of The Day on Saturday night, a real institution in the United Kingdom where it has been broadcast since 1964 and currently conducted by the former English striker who has an external contract with the BBC from one and a half million pounds a year.
Then the BBC's U-turn and an apology from Director General Tim Davie who described the BBC's commitment to freedom of expression and impartiality as a "difficult balance" and announced a revision of the broadcaster's social media guidelines.
On the eve of his return to TV, Lineker, interviewed by La Liga Sports TV, thanked his colleagues - who had suspended themselves from programming - for the support received.
"I have been presenting sport to the BBC for almost thirty years and I am immensely proud to work with the best and fairest broadcaster in the world. I can't wait to get back in the MOTD chair on Saturday," he added.
Meanwhile, "masks" with Lineker's face appeared on the faces of protesters in their marches in support of refugees.