Gary Lineker leaves Match of the Day LIVE: BBC ‘agree podcast deal’ with host as MOTD exit announced

The football world is eagerly watching as the BBC prepares to find a successor for Gary Lineker, who will step down as Match of the Day host next year, at the end of the Premier League season.

The 63-year-old former Leicester City striker is the corporation’s highest-paid presenter, with his current annual salary estimated to be worth £1.35m.

Lineker, who has been synonymous with the show since 1999, leaves behind big shoes to fill, and rumours are already swirling about who might step in.

As part of the press release confirming Gary Lineker’s departure from Match of the Day the 63-year-old spoke about his excitement to remain with the BBC for the FA Cup and 2026 World Cup.

He said: “I’m delighted to continue my long association with BBC Sport and would like to thank all those who made this happen.”

The bookmakers are already offering odds for the next permanent host of Match of the Day with Mark Chapman the favourite at 5/4 according to Boyle Sports.

Here are the odds for the frontrunners:

Gary Lineker’s podcast The Rest is Football, which he hosts alongside Alan Shearer and Micah Richards, will be airing weekly episodes on BBC Sounds from next month according to the PA News Agency.

The news comes after Lineker was confirmed to be stepping down from his role as the presenter of Match of the Day at the end of the current season.

As a presenter, Lineker sometimes stood in for Des Lynam on the Saturday afternoon sports show Grandstand and by the mid-90s he was appearing on Match of the Day, also hosted by Lynam, as a pundit.

“Des was very helpful – I used to ask a lot of questions about the little things that he did, and picked up some of his nuances,” Lineker said.

“He told me to be brave occasionally with closing lines, and not to be afraid to try to be amusing. Again, the little pay-offs I sometimes make at the end of the show are something that came from him.”

“As early as my mid-20s, I knew which direction I wanted to go in when I retired from playing,” Gary Lineker told the BBC in 2014 when speaking about how he made the move into media.

He added: “I would watch the newspaper guys write their opening paragraphs and sit with the radio journalists and talk to them about how they did their job.”

Lineker started out on Radio 5 Live which he described as ‘a learning process’. He later admitted his transition into radio and TV ‘took a lot of work’.

“I managed to stumble my way through it,” he said: “I learned from really good people alongside me who were incredibly helpful in the early days.”

Gary Lineker was an immeasurably good footballer and a fine striker. During his playing career he captained England and scored 48 goals in 80 appearances, famously never receiving a red or yellow card.

Lineker was the 1986 World Cup Golden Boot winner, and the top goal-scorer in England three times, each with a different club: Leicester City, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur.

His ability on the pitch made him a popular figure in the late 80s and early 90s which aided his transition into broadcasting following his retirement in 1994.

When Des Lynam hung up his moustache and walked away from the Match of the Day presenting gig in 1999, BBC bosses were faced with a conundrum. Lynam was popular with viewers and a sporting polymath but had jumped ship for ITV after they doubled his pay. Who could fill his boots on such a shoestring budget?

The answer was Gary Lineker. Described by the BBC, at the time, as having a “relaxed style”, Lineker was already familiar to viewers thanks not only to a stellar on-pitch career, but various presenting jobs across the corporation. He had appeared on Radio 5 Live and Grandstand, as well as a stint as a captain on They Think It’s All Over, a comedy panel show. And as the lights came up on the 1999/2000 Premier League season, he found himself in one of biggest jobs in football media, presiding over the flagship highlights package of a season that featured 23 goals from his future sofa-mate, Alan Shearer.

As Ange Postecoglou came in after another deflating Tottenham Hotspur defeat, both he and fans were evidently furious, but there were some calming voices. It’s just “that kind of season”, as some around the club maintained. This isn’t a figure of speech. It’s a fact. Spurs’s inconsistency has spread to the majority of the Premier League, in a way that has never been seen before.

The gap between third and 13th is only four points. Between third and 11th, it’s a mere three. The table has never been so congested at this stage, across more than half the table and almost a third of the way through the season.

Historically, the closest we’ve seen to this kind of table at this stage are the four points that separated third-placed Chelsea and 11th-placed Fulham in 2002-03, and the five between Spurs and Middlesbrough in 2005-06. From third to 13th, the closest has been the six between Arsenal and Newcastle United in 1998-99.

With his contract due to expire at the end of the 2024/25 campaign, the 63-year-old entered into negotiations over an extension, but BBC bosses have elected to move on.