Gary Lineker says he was ‘a bit emotional' after final Match Of The Day

South Wales Guardian

4 days ago

Speaking to pundits Micah Richards and Alan Shearer on the Rest Is Football podcast, which is produced by his company Goalhanger Podcasts, Lineker, 64, said he struggled to stop the tears as a montage played during the football highlights programme on Sunday.
Lineker told the men, who regularly appeared on the show with him: 'I was a bit tired, and a bit emotional last night, I'm fine.
'I'm good, and thank you both for your very kind words last night. I must say, when they played the montage, obviously, I knew something was coming, but I didn't know what it was at all.
'(I was) struggling to keep myself (together), especially when I saw my boys, you know what it's like when it's family and stuff, and thankfully that wasn't the last clip, because I'd gone at that point, I needed time to get myself together to try and get through the end of the show.'
The former Barcelona striker wiped away tears after the montage, which featured messages from pundits past and present including Richards, Shearer, former Liverpool defender and pundit Alan Hansen, Danny Murphy and former Arsenal striker Ian Wright.
There were also words from Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola and former Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri, and former team-mates Alan Smith, Paul Gascoigne and Peter Shilton, as well as Lineker's sons George, Harry, Tobias and Angus.
On Monday's episode of the Rest Is Football Lineker also spoke about losing the copy sheet of information to read out over the Premier League table during his last show, meaning he had to ad-lib.
He said on the podcast: 'For the first time ever, because of everything that was going on, I completely lost what we call the copy, which is basically the written form of what I read out over the tables.
'It's written by the subs, it needs to be accurate, obviously, for all the things, you can't make any mistakes.
'For the first time in 26 years I couldn't find it, and it wasn't there, so I just (improvised), which was a bit different.
'But there were a couple of tears, I was fighting it back a bit with my closing lines.'
Richards paid tribute to Lineker, saying: 'Just to be sharing the studio with you, and like I said on the the montage, all the help, all the guidance, I truly meant it with all my heart, and it was just nice to see you get the send-off that you deserve.'
Gary Lineker says goodbye to #MOTD after 25 years. pic.twitter.com/u1DORcO6Po
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) May 25, 2025
Lineker signed off after 26 years, telling viewers it had been an 'absolute privilege' and 'utterly joyous' to front the show.
His departure from the broadcaster follows a row after he shared a post about Zionism, which featured a depiction of a rat, historically an antisemitic insult.
Lineker, the BBC's highest-paid presenter, issued an unreserved apology over the social media post, as it was confirmed he would leave his presenting role at the BBC early and would no longer front coverage of the 2026 World Cup or next season's FA Cup.
In his final message on the show, Lineker said: 'Rather like my football career, everyone else did all the hard work and I got the plaudits. It's been an absolute privilege to host Match Of The Day for a quarter of a century.
'It's been utterly joyous.'
Gabby Logan, Kelly Cates and Mark Chapman will replace the Leicester-born star and share the presenting role from the next Premier League season, and Lineker wished them 'all the very best when they sit in this chair'.
The montage also showed a clip of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma at Leicester's title celebrations in 2016, and an emotional Lineker watching the performance.
Bocelli left a farewell message for Lineker, before he was shown playing out the show.
Near the end of the episode Lineker quipped 'it had to be Leicester last', followed by a clip of him on Match Of The Day in just his underpants in August 2016, having stuck to a promise to appear half-naked if Leicester won the Premier League.
He wore white and blue Leicester shorts for the first 30 minutes of the show.
He had grown up supporting the club, and went on to score 94 goals in 194 matches for the Foxes.
Lineker has presented Match Of The Day since 1999 and has fronted the BBC's coverage of other major sporting events, including the 2012 London Olympics.