Lineker's advice to BBC: stop worrying about what people who hate you think

Gary Lineker has said the BBC should stop trying to placate its political opponents, warning the broadcaster's bosses spend too much time worrying about the views of people "who will hate you for ever".

- Jim Waterson

The Match of the Day presenter said newspapers such as the Daily Mail were ideologically committed to the downfall of the BBC.

"We don't sell ourselves well enough and we end up fearful of everybody," he said. "We seem to be scared of the people that actually want to defund the BBC. They will always want to defund the BBC regardless of what the BBC does. Ignore them and concentrate on the people who love the BBC."

Lineker was briefly suspended by the BBC earlier this year after he tweeted about the language used by the government to describe asylum seekers. After a mass walkout by staff, the BBC director general, Tim Davie, was forced to reinstate his highest-paid employee and review the BBC's guidelines on impartiality.

Lineker said the press attention during that period was overwhelming, but he never felt he had done anything wrong. "I stuck by what I'd said. Eventually normality resumed but it was a very bizarre experience... I love the BBC, and the one upsetting thing about that whole thing for me was that it was pitched as 'BBC versus me' and we're on the same team."

In addition to his BBC presenting duties the former England footballer runs Goalhanger Productions, which makes enormously successful - and profitable - podcasts such as The Rest is History and The Rest is Politics. He is preparing to launch The Rest is Football, a thrice-weekly podcast with fellow Match of the Day pundits Alan Shearer and Micah Richards.