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21st Oct 2016

The Sun’s Gary Lineker front page intensifies refugee debate

Lineker has since responded.

JOE

Gary Lineker’s name has been in the headlines plenty this week, and not much of it to do with football.

At the beginning of the week the Match of the Day presenter didn’t hold back in expressing his views about the ongoing refugee crisis with his Twitter followers.

After noticing something of a backlash from some sections of the public with regards to the UK allowing more refugees into Britain, he tweeted, quite passionately some might say, about his concerns.

Many applauded Lineker for using his position to speak out.

But there were others who accused him of overstepping the mark as an impartial member of the BBC.

https://twitter.com/dent791/status/788407511644790787

The former Leicester and England striker continued to be drawn into the political conversation about the UK’s decision to take more unaccompanied children from the ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais, standing by his claims that alarmingly racist rhetoric was being used in reaction to the news.

His critics argued that many of the people coming into the country weren’t children, and were lying about their age.

After Tory MP David Davies said dental checks should be used to verify ages, a move ruled as ‘unethical’ by the Home Office, Lineker retweeted a (now deleted Tweet) from fostering charity TACT, who claimed a refugee The Sun newspaper had said was actually 38-years-old (they say according to computerised facial analysis) was actually an adult interpreter employed by The Home Office .

However, the Home Office confirmed that the unnamed asylum seeker did not work for them, contrary to what the charity had said.

The Sun have since accused Lineker of ‘peddling a lie’ on the issue, and on their front page this morning  they report calls for the 55-year-old to be sacked for breaching BBC guidelines.

They quoted David Davies, who said: “I hope he apologises. I question if the BBC should be employing him when he seems to be using his fame to push out his rather emotive and controversial views.”

Yet again, the issue divided the internet. Some said Lineker was indeed wrong to persist in making his views known.

https://twitter.com/2053pam/status/789223172843433986

https://twitter.com/nf_disco/status/789223219916046337

But others condemned the newspaper and continued to support Linker for his pleas for compassion.

And, after waking up to the front page and the subsequent messages of both support and abuse, Lineker tried to offer some perspective.