Gary? Our Gary? Gary, the one with the hundreds of goals for Tottenham and Barcelona? Gary who scored England’s consolation goal after Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” and “Goal of the Century” in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal at the Azteca? That Gary? Gary, who was never shown a yellow or red card because he was such a fair player? Gary? Are you sure? It can’t be.
We are talking about Gary from the intelligent Premier League broadcasts, right? The man who coined one of the most brilliant lines in the history of the game and summed up soccer with it? The insightful podcasts? Gary? Yes. That Gary.
The height of hypocrisy
Gary Lineker belongs to a new group that has always existed, but was reborn after Oct. 7. Let us call it “Human Rights Inc.” — we will get to the abbreviated name shortly.
You rarely hear the former star take a position on Russia’s actions. We did not hear him demand the sporting or cultural isolation of Iran. Nor will you hear him criticize China for imprisoning members of a Muslim minority in reeducation camps and sterilizing women from that community.
We heard almost nothing from him about the massacre at the Nova music festival, the women who were raped or the killing of Jews. Instead of empathy, there was apathy.
He has nothing to say about the deadly attack outside a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, or about his own role in an atmosphere of incitement; about the lives of Jews in the country where he lives, the harassment they face and the succession of antisemitic incidents. The fact that Jews are leaving England does not seem to move him.
If Gary Lineker, Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem or the other members of “Human Rights Inc.” want to be antisemites — which, in my view, is the appropriate abbreviated name for this club — no one is stopping them. Quite the opposite. It is rather fashionable now.
(Photo: AFP)
But spare us the stories. Stand behind the antisemitism.
Hello, my name is Gary Lineker and I am a proud antisemite.
This week, Lineker liked and shared a clip by anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein. Greenstein, whose father was an Orthodox rabbi, was acquitted in a trial on a charge of inviting support for Hamas, but during the proceedings argued that the events of Oct. 7 were justified and said he supported Hamas “as part of the resistance,” though not “as an organization.”
In the clip, Greenstein said, “my opposition to Zionism was because I was Jewish, and that Zionism is in the tradition of the Nazis who persecuted Jews.”
This time, Lineker cannot defend himself by saying, “I didn’t know” or “I didn’t notice.”
He exhausted those excuses in May 2025, when he shared a video by the Palestine Lobby under the headline “Zionism explained in less than two minutes.” The post included a rat emoji, an image strongly associated with Nazi antisemitic propaganda.
Lineker deleted the post, apologized and discovered how easy it can be to obtain forgiveness after publishing something widely seen as antisemitic, both in public and in the corporate world.
One of several antisemitic posts shared by Lineker since the Oct. 7 attack
(Photo: Screengrab)
The podcast network in which he is a partner continued to thrive. His program aired on Netflix during the World Cup under a lucrative contract. The streaming deal was expanded to additional soccer events, and a four-part series about his life is expected to premiere on Amazon Prime next year.
Lineker did lose his job at the BBC as the longtime host of “Match of the Day,” after about 26 years in which he became the public broadcaster’s highest-paid presenter. His salary was about 1.35 million pounds, more than twice that of the next-highest earner.
His contract as host of the program was already due to end, but he had been expected to remain at the BBC and lead coverage of the FA Cup and the 2026 World Cup. After the rat-emoji controversy, his work with the broadcaster ended entirely.
Even before that, he had been suspended for three days after comparing language used by the British government on immigration policy with that used in Germany in the 1930s.
In any case, the BBC — a public broadcaster that employs Jewish staff and is funded in part by Jewish citizens — was a fitting home for Lineker.
It is a broadcaster that has long displayed a distinctly anti-Israel line and has apologized several times for journalistic failures in its coverage of Israel and for one-sided or tendentious content, including its initial coverage of the explosion at a Gaza hospital.
A month after the Oct. 7 massacre, Lineker shared a 13-minute clip in which Holocaust scholar Raz Segal accused Israel of genocide. He later called for Israel to be barred from international tournaments, described the IDF’s actions as “crimes against humanity” and said the Oct. 7 attack “did not begin on that date, but long before.”
It is hardly surprising that Muslim soccer players who expressed support for the massacre in Gaza border towns, and even celebrated it, stood by him.
When the BBC parted ways with Lineker, I immediately thought of Ante Pavelic, leader of Croatia’s Ustasha, whom even senior Nazis considered excessively violent and told to calm down.
There is demand for the product
Lineker apologized for the 2025 post.
“On Instagram I reposted material which I have since learned contained offensive references. I very much regret these references,” he wrote on Instagram. “I would never knowingly share anything antisemitic. It goes against everything I believe in.”
(Photo: Alex Pantling, Getty Images)
He also said he had not been aware of the offensive meaning of the emoji.
But apologies are one thing and actions are another.
Lineker simply could not overcome the impulse. The dominant current in the British and global left, centered on criticism of Israel, has become a release valve through which antisemitic motifs can be directed at Jews and Judaism more broadly.
Gary Lineker should not be dismissed. There is demand for what he is selling. Millions listen to him and are influenced by him.
He should be seen exactly as he presents himself: as an antisemite.
No excuse or apology changes that. He has made clear who he is.
His posts are not aimed only at Israel. The country — and his accusations that it practices apartheid, genocide and crimes against humanity — serves as a conduit through which he can freely, and with enormous reach, express what he thinks about Jews and Zionism.
Now that he is no longer being paid by a public broadcaster, Lineker does not even appear to feel obliged to apologize for sharing Greenstein’s clip.