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BBC Sport pundit Chris Sutton has admitted that he would have loved to have taken part in the usual 606 phone-in after many of the broadcaster’s shows were cancelled in light of the ongoing row involving Gary Lineker. The decision to suspend Lineker from his Match of the Day presenting duties over comments made on Twitter last week sparked a furious backlash from across the world of football, with several of the 62-year-old’s colleagues refusing to go on air in protest.
Ian Wright and Alan Shearer quickly announced that they would not be appearing on the show in solidarity with Lineker, while the likes of Alex Scott and Jermaine Jenas ruled themselves out of the running to replace the former England striker as host. Match of the Day was eventually broadcast on Saturday night in a condensed format without pundits or commentators, while several of the BBC’s other football programmes were also cancelled including Football Focus and Final Score.
The regular 606 phone-in on BBC Radio 5 Live was among the casualties over the weekend and Sutton has since admitted that he was disappointed to have been denied the opportunity to take up his usual role amid the ongoing stand-off between the organisation and Lineker.
“There is no 606 tonight,” tweeted Sutton. “I hope Gary Lineker and the BBC resolve this messy situation and Gary is back on MOTD soon but I’d have loved to have worked on our football phone-in tonight and chatted about football and all of the days’ games.”
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The BBC went on to experience further disruption on Sunday, with the pivotal Women’s Super League game between Chelsea and Manchester United being shown without any punditry or half-time analysis and Match of the Day 2 running in a scaled-down format later that evening.
Discussions are now said to be taking place between the BBC and Lineker with a view to reinstating him on Match of the Day, although not all issues are said to have been ironed out as of yet. The broadcaster’s director general Tim Davie appeared to back down to Lineker in an interview on Saturday, in which he described the England legend as one of the best presenters in the business and underlined his desire to see a return to normality as a matter of urgency.
“Let’s be clear, we’ve got the best sports broadcaster in the world,” said Davie. “We want to make sure that he can come back on air, we work together to make that happen and everyone wants to see a reasonable solution to this.
“As a keen sports fan I know to miss programming is a real blow and I’m sorry about that. We are working very hard to resolve this situation and make sure we get output on air. I am in listening mode. I want to make sure that going forward we have a workable solution.”
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