Ian Wright Threatens To Resign If BBC Fires Gary Lineker

Arsenal legend and football pundit Ian Wright says he is "out" and "gone" if the BBC "get rid" of freelance broadcaster Gary Lineker.

Lineker was told to take a break from presenting Match Of The Day (MOTD) following his response on Twitter to a Home Office video in which Home Secretary Suella Braverman unveiled the Government's plans to stop migrants crossing the Channel on small boats.

The tweet of the 62-year-old sparked a row as he likened Braverman's language to that of 1930s Germany.

“There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries," he tweeted.

“This is just 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's tweet apparently didn't sit well with the BBC who "decided" that he should step back until an “agreed and clear position” on his use of social media had been reached.

As such, MOTD regulars Alan Shearer and Wright announced on Friday that they would be boycotting the show in solidarity with Lineker.

But Wright, in addressing the situation on his podcast Wrighty's House, said: “I’ll tell you something. 

"If they do – the BBC get rid of Gary Lineker – I’m out, I’m gone. I’m not staying there. 

"On his own platform he should be able to say what he wants to say.

"Gary Lineker he says stuff on everything and it’s almost like this one has missed everybody simply because he says so much but this is so right what he is saying. 

"I have spoken to Gary, I am behind him."

Explaining the row, the former England international added: "He wrote a tweet about everything that has been happening with the human rights issues and everything here and it’s the perfect distraction for this government.

"Gary’s tweet was the headline news, it’s like they need Gary Lineker to distract everybody. 

"For me, it is a human issue, it's not political.

"They have got no empathy, the most vulnerable ones are always the ones that suffer. 

"They are the ones that suffer and it starts with words."

He continued: "Gary Lineker I think retweeted from a German professor, because the Hitler thing is what they all jumped on and everything like that but he retweeted saying that it all starts with language.

"It starts with words, they didn’t just start throwing people into concentration camps.

"It starts with words and language and what they are doing again is the culture war they want us to all have, left-versus-right: ‘Oh you’re woke, you’re woke’."