Gary Lineker breached BBC’s impartiality rule with Tory ‘Russian donors’ tweet

Gary Lineker has been found to have breached BBC impartiality rules over a comment he made about the Conservative Party having “Russian donors”.

The BBC said it has upheld a reader complaint made about the Match Of The Day presenter’s tweet from February 23 this year.

Mr Lineker shared an article about Liz Truss, then foreign secretary, urging Premier League teams to boycott the Champions League final in Russia, with the comment: “And her party will hand back their donations from Russian donors?”

The BBC said it received a complaint over whether the comment was consistent with its impartiality rules, which it said as “one of the BBC’s highest profile stars” Mr Lineker is expected to follow.

It said the former England striker pointed out that his tweet was prompted by an article on football, and it was intended as a comment on the sport rather than on politics.

But the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) judged that “one of the purposes” of Mr Lineker’s tweet was “to highlight a perceived inconsistency in the Conservative Party’s approach at a time when relations between the UK and Russia were the subject of significant public debate”.

“For this reason, we found the tweet was in breach of the relevant Guidance and did not meet the BBC’s editorial standards on impartiality,” it said.

The broadcaster said the finding has been reported to the management of BBC Sport and discussed with Mr Lineker.

Mr Lineker is one of the BBC’s highest earners and has 8.6 million followers on Twitter.