Gary Lineker's net worth after huge BBC salary loss, health fears and 'weird' love life

Wales Online

19-05-2025

Gary Lineker's net worth after huge BBC salary loss, health fears and 'weird' love life
The Match of the Day presenter is set to depart the BBC earlier than expected with his position understood to be untenable
Lineker and his ex-wife Danielle Bux split in 2016 but remain close friends
Gary Lineker is set to leave the BBC and will not return to present the corporation's coverage of next year's World Cup as originally planned, it has been revealed.
The 64-year-old presenter will bring down the curtain on his time with the broadcaster when he presents his final ever episode of Match of the Day on Sunday, after 26 years in the role. While he was due to leave the show at the end of the season, he was set to front the BBC's World Cup coverage as well as their live FA Cup broadcasts for the 2025/26 campaign.
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However, he is set to depart the corporation for good this weekend, with his exit coming after he shared a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration of a rat, which is historically used as an antisemitic insult.
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While he issued a public apology over the post and added that he would never knowingly share anything antisemitic, it is understood that BBC bossses now consider Lineker's position with the broadcaster to be untenable.
It is expected that an offiical announcement confirming the ex-Leicester City, Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur star's departure will be made on Monday.
Recent years have seen Lineker make headlines for events in both his professsional and personal life, with the enormous BBC salary that he is about to lose being put under scrutiny and his "weird" love life raising a few eyebrows at the same time.
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As he prepares to say goodbye to the BBC, here's what you need to know about the presenter's life away from the studio.
'Outrageous' BBC salary
Lineker's exit from the BBC means he is set to lose the eye-watering salary that has seen him consistently rank as the corporation's top earner for the past seven years..
The BBC's annual salary report in June last year revealed that the presenter earned between £1,300,000 and £1,354,999 for the year 2023/2024.
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According to the Daily Mail, Lineker is believed to have previously been open to continue presenting Match of the Day beyond this season and at one stage is said to have offered to take a significant pay cut of approximately £350,000 in order to do so.
He previously earned a whopping £1.75 million salary from the corporation, which was described as "outrageous" by veteran BBC presenter John Humphreys in 2019.
While he was one of the most celebrated footballers of his generation, the majority of Lineker's wealth stems from his television work, with his playing career coming to an end before the financial surge brought about by the Premier League began.
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However, he is also making a pretty penny through his burgeoning podcast empire, with Goalhanger Podcasts - the home of The Rest Is Football and other popular podcasts - recording a huge £1.4 million profit earlier this year.
According to the Mirror, Lineker's various ventures mean he has an estimated net worth of around £30million.
'Weird' relationship with ex-wife
Lineker's love life has also made headlines over the years, with the presenter admitting that one of his personal relationships in particular may be considered "weird" to other people
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The former England star married his first wife, Michelle Cockayne, in 1986 and they have four sons together - George, Harry, Tobias and Angus.
However, they split after two decades of marriage with Cockayne filing for divorce in 2006 citing Lineker's alleged "unreasonable behaviour", as documents submitted to the court claimed that his actions had caused her "stress and anxiety".
Two years after his separation from his first wife, Lineker was set up with Welsh actress and model Danielle Bux by a mutual friend and the pair got married in 2009.
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However, they eventually divorced in 2016 due to the former footballer not wanting to have more children.
Just over a year later, Bux had a baby daughter with American attorney Nate Greenwald, with the couple marrying in 2019.
But having ended their relationship as "the greatest of friends", Lineker insists there is no awkwardness between him and Bux, or Greenwald, and he often joins the couple for dinner when visiting Los Angeles.
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"[Greenwald] has not got a jealous bone in his body," he told the Radio Times. "We get on really well. We go out for dinner when I'm in LA. It might be unusual and people might go, 'That's weird' but, frankly, I don't care.
"What is normal? Is it better to get divorced and end up fighting, screaming and shouting? Or is it better to get on if you can?"
The presenter also revealed in an interview with The Times that he is currently single, admitting: "I like being on my own".
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"I know it sounds a bit mad," he added. "I have lots of company. I've got lots of friends and I've also got my boys... I don't feel lonely. I have the odd date here and there but nothing serious in terms of a long relationship."
"I've been married most of my adult life. Two really good marriages, I'm friends with both. I'm not saying whether it'll change. It might do. I don't know. But at the minute I'm very comfortable."
Lineker has since been spotted dining with Jemima Goldsmith, the ex-wife of former cricketer and previous Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. However, any speculation about a romantic relationship was swiftly dismissed.
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Fears over health
Lineker is very health conscious and has spoken openly about his concerns of developing dementia or Parkinson's disease as a result of his playing career.
The likes of Nobby Stiles, Jack Charlton and Martin Peters are among the former top footballers to die with dementia in recent years.
Research has since shown that former football professionals are 50 per cent more likely to develop dementia than the rest of the population, as per the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. But even before that research came to light, Lineker consciously avoided heading drills while training as he was concerned with the impact it would have on his brain.
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"Any footballer should be apprehensive [about headers] and I don't mind admitting that I am," he told the Sun. "I headed the ball a lot as a kid – and when I was 20, 21, I made a conscious decision not to do it in training.
"We'd get wet, heavy balls in the winter months – we didn't get new balls every week like they do now – and it was something I was concerned about, as I was a player who scored a lot of headers."
Lineker, who scored 32 headed goals over the course of his career, added: "I've had conversations with Alan Shearer and Ian Wright and others about the worry that, come 10, 15 years, that it [dementia] might happen to one of us. The odds suggest that it probably will."
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Back in 2022, he revealed: "I'll have my triannual test this summer and ask if there's anything they can establish around the brain, because I don't see how, given the circumstances, any footballer wouldn't be worried about it. It's a worry. I don't mind admitting that it concerns me. There's no question there's a link."
Lineker's concerns come after Parkinson's disease claimed the life of his grandfather, who was also a footballer.
"My grandfather was in the army but a very good footballer, too," he told the Daily Mail. "He was in his mid-50s when he developed Parkinson's. We didn't think of why at the time."
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Lineker has also had a prostate cancer "scare" while undergoing a medical check, as he told The Sun: "I have a full body check every couple of years and I did have one prostate scare.
'It's important to get ahead of it and a lot of men, we sometimes think, 'I'm all right'. We don't want to see doctors. But that's a dangerous game. We are all a little bit scared of having something and I think it's fair to share that."
During his playing career, Lineker also feared that he had contracted Aids while representing in England back in 1988 - but it later emerged that he had hepatitis. In his memoir 'Behind Closed Doors: Life, Laughs and Football', he wrote: "I started to notice something was wrong during the European Championships in the summer of 1988.
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"In our second game we played... I felt considerably more ill – heavy-limbed and aching. There didn't seem to be any explanation for it.
"I was also losing weight – about a stone and a half, it would eventually emerge. I quietly wondered if I had Aids. I managed to frighten myself with the thought."