GB News have decided to air their own version of Match of the Day, despite not having the rights to Premier League football.
On Friday, the nation was shocked after the BBC announced that Gary Lineker will step back from presenting Match of the Day after his controversial Twitter activities.
Since the announcement, many presenters and pundits, including the likes of Ian Wright, Alan Shearer and Alex Scott have all ruled themselves out of this weekend’s programme. Furthermore, most of the BBC's commentators have also decided to boycott the show.
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As a result, it was confirmed that Match of the Day will go ahead without any commentary and punditry.
Now, GB News have said they will give fans what they want.
Presenter Mark Dolan said: “We are the people’s channel, and the people need commentary, they need punditry, Match of the Day clocks in at seven million viewers a week, so if the BBC will not serve that audience then GB News with Mark Dolan tonight are happy to step in.
“It’s going to be the Alternative Match of the Day, I am Gary Lineker. And to make it really feel like Match of the Day, GB News are going to pay me £1.3million.”
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Dolan continued: “We won’t be able to show live or recorded footage of goals or anything like that.
“What we will have is top level punditry, so we will have an array of political-free footballers.
“These are going to be commentators who are not interested in getting involved in Government policy and understand that the British public love their footy and just want to talk about goals, goals, goals.
“It’s going to be an all-star line-up, we’re going to have some fun. We’re going to talk about the football, we’ll try to have still photography and as many clips as we can get our hands on.”
It is currently unknown whether the normal format will return on BBC next weekend.
Topics: Gary Lineker, Match Of The Day, Football
Marcus Chan