14/10/22: The BBC’s executive complaints unit (ECU) has ruled that Match of the Day’s Gary Lineker, the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, broke impartiality rules with a tweet relating to Russia in February.
The tweet, which is still live, questioned whether the Conservative Party should give back money from Russian donors in response to Liz Truss suggesting Premier League teams should boycott the Champions League final in Russia.
The ECU said that although Lineker is not a journalist, he has an additional responsibility for impartiality under the BBC’s guidance which states high standards apply to those “who nevertheless have an additional responsibility to the BBC because of their profile on the BBC”.
The guidance states: “We expect these individuals to avoid taking sides on party political issues or political controversies and to take care when addressing public policy matters.”
Lineker argued that the tweet was prompted by an article about football, his area of expertise, rather than politics and BBC Sport management suggested that by framing the tweet as a question it may have limited the extent to which readers saw it as a political opinion from him.
But the ruling said: “Whatever the mitigating effect of these factors, however, the ECU judged that they could not entirely erase the impression that one of its purposes 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.”
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