Gary Lineker cheekily suggested he should have bid farewell to the BBC a decade earlier after his podcast scooped an award. The 64-year-old left the broadcaster in May having been the face of Match of the Day for 26 years. Lineker had initially planned to bow out in 2025 from the iconic football highlights show with expectations that he would continue with the BBC and lead their 2026 World Cup coverage . However, following an anti-Semitism row , Lineker announced in May that he'd cut all ties