Gary Lineker taunts BBC for having World Cup studio in 'green box in Salford'

 Gary Lineker has taunted the BBC, calling its World Cup studio a “green box in Salford” while boasting about his sacking freeing him up to spend the tournament in New York.

Lineker said on Thursday that he had no regrets about missing out on anchoring the corporation’s coverage of this summer’s tournament, during an event in London to launch Netflix’s Sports Club

He made his comments almost a year after losing his £1.35m-a-year job as the BBC’s highest-paid star for sharing an anti-Semitic rat emoji on social media. It was compounded by an interview with Telegraph Sport in which he called Israel’s military response to the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on the country “completely out of proportion”.

The scandal did not stop Netflix signing a £14m deal to televise his The Rest is Football podcast during the World Cup, for which Lineker will be based at a glitzy studio overlooking Times Square.

He said: “I was originally going to do it for the BBC this summer but that didn’t transpire and I would have been in Salford in a green box and now I’m going to be in New York City overlooking Times Square with lots of great guests.”

The World Cup will be the second major tournament since the launch of The Rest is Football, which Lineker co-hosts with Alan Shearer and Micah Richards.

During the first – the last European Championship – the podcast dominated the news agenda when Lineker called England “s---” following their dire 1-1 group-stage draw with Denmark.

Reflecting on the fuss it caused – including a public rebuke from England captain Harry Kane – Lineker said: “With us – Alan, Micah and myself – we are also fans and we will all be cheering England, but sometimes when you care that much you are probably more critical of your own team than anybody else.

“There was a bit of furore during the Euros when I said, ‘England played s---’. And they did. If I said England had played really poorly it wouldn’t have made headlines. I only said it because I cared because it was excruciating and England got lucky with their goal. You have to tell it as it is and we continue to do that, and hopefully I won’t have to say anything like that.

“Sport is real-life drama. It is different to anything else. It is genuinely real drama and particularly World Cups. The emotions of the World Cup, you cheer your team on and it is patriotism in a good way, and it matters so much to people.”

Following his sharing of an anti-Semitic rat emoji, Lineker issued an unprecedented apology and insisted he had not spotted the trope when re-posting it to his millions of followers.