War on Gaza: Gary Lineker sparks row after seemingly supporting Israel sports ban

Sports presenter and former England footballer Gary Lineker has sparked praise and criticism after retweeting a post on X, formerly Twitter, calling for Israel to be banned from international sporting tournaments.

The post was made by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) who cited a call from the Palestinian Football Association for Israel to be suspended from international sporting bodies, including FIFA and the Olympics, over its attack on Gaza.

"The [PACBI] supports the PFA demand while also calling for international public and official pressure on international sporting bodies, especially the [International Olympic Committee] and FIFA, to suspend Israel’s membership and ban it from international tournaments and games until it ends its grave violations of international law, particularly its apartheid rule and the crime of genocide it is perpetrating in Gaza," said PACBI in an attached statement.

Lineker, who apparently rescinded the retweet later, was both praised by pro-Palestinian campaigners and attacked by pro-Israel supporters in response.

A number of accounts claimed that Lineker was supporting Hamas and accused him of not speaking out about the killing of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas on 7 October.

One Conservative MP, Andrew Percy, called Lineker "an ill-informed, ignorant commentator on the Middle East" on social media adding that "nobody who receives taxpayers’ money working in the BBC should be endorsing a campaign that is widely understood to promote Jew hate.”

Lineker was a prolific striker who was top scorer at the 1986 World Cup and also helped England to reach the semifinals of the 1990 tournament.

His club sides included Barcelona, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur.

Lineker, who hosts flagship football show Match of the Day on the BBC, has repeatedly faced criticism for airing his political opinions on social media.

Last year he faced calls for his resignation after he slammed the British government's refugee plans, describing them as an "immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s".

Lineker was temporarily removed from his presenter role on Match of the Day over his tweets but was reinstated after fellow presenters lan Wright and Alan Shearer boycotted the BBC show in solidarity with him.

The BBC maintains strict rules on impartiality for its journalists but Lineker, as a presenter, was not bound by them.

Following the criticism from the government over the refugee tweet, however, the BBC said it would introduce new rules to restrict what high-profile figures could say.