The BBC has launched a brand new actuality present on TikTok to search out the following soccer social media star simply days after it was revealed Gary Lineker can be leaving Match Of The Day.
The winner of the BBC present will likely be provided a job making content material for reveals comparable to Soccer Focus.
Lineker will step down as host of the soccer highlights programme on the finish of the season however will proceed to current protection of the FA Cup in 2025/26 and the World Cup in 2026, the BBC beforehand confirmed.
The sports activities broadcaster mentioned internet hosting Match Of The Day for greater than twenty years was ‘an absolute pleasure and privilege’, however that it’s ‘the best time’ for him to exit and ‘another person to take the helm’ because the BBC seems to make adjustments to the programme.
‘It has been an absolute pleasure and privilege to current such an iconic present for the BBC, however all issues have to return to an finish,’ Lineker mentioned on his podcast, The Relaxation Is Soccer.
‘It got here at some extent the place actually the BBC and Match Of The Day, they have the rights for an additional three years, the cycle begins from subsequent season so it felt like if I simply do yet another yr it will be a bit bizarre.’
The 63-year-old former England striker later added: ‘I bowed out in my soccer profession after I felt it was the best time. I really feel that is now the best time.
‘I believe the following contract they’re seeking to do Match Of The Day barely in another way, so I believe it is smart for another person to take the helm.’
Lineker, pictured catching a practice yesterday, can even step down from Sports activities Character of the 12 months
Lineker has develop into an everyday staple on Saturday night time tv over 25 years
Arguably his most iconic second on the present got here when he offered it in his underpants in August 2016 after Leicester Metropolis gained the Premier League title
A TikTok actuality present will now search for the following soccer skilled who can attraction to youthful viewers.
The scheme’s website mentioned: ‘We’re on the lookout for gifted soccer obsessives who’re as snug explaining the most recent tactical improvements to fan tradition to interviewing high gamers.
‘All shortlisted candidates can have an on-screen alternative in addition to receiving coaching and upskilling as a part of the scheme.
‘After completion of the collection, the competitors winner will likely be additionally provided a paid alternative as a BBC Sport contributor.
‘The window for functions will open in December 2024 and full particulars will likely be out there on this web page within the coming weeks.’
Lineker refused to invest who can be taking his place, as rumours grew round Mark Chapman, the common Match Of The Day 2 presenter, Soccer Focus host Alex Scott, and BBC sports activities protection presenter Gabby Logan.
After his departure was introduced he additionally spoke to MPs about prostate most cancers, becoming a member of them in requires a nationwide screening programme for prostate most cancers.
‘Clearly I do not know who it will be, and I’d by no means inform publicly my desire, I do not assume that’d be the best factor to do – however whoever it’s, I’d say be your self,’ he mentioned.
Mark Chapman has been touted because the frontrunner to interchange Gary Lineker as host of Match Of The Day
Alex Scott can also be a contender for the celebrated position because the nation’s most famed soccer host
Micah Richards, a pundit on Match of the Day and Lineker’s The Relaxation Is Soccer, can also be seen as one of many frontrunners
‘I needed to fill the ginormous sneakers of sure Des Lynam.
‘I’d say simply be your self and revel in it, it is a great programme to be part of. It was good earlier than I took over, and it will likely be good after I depart.’
Lineker has hosted Match Of The Day since 1999 and can have offered the present for greater than 1 / 4 of a century when he leaves in Could 2025.
‘I look again and it has been an incredible expertise, and I really feel extremely lucky,’ he mentioned, earlier than confirming he’ll nonetheless watch Match Of The Day.
Lineker mentioned it was good to be leaving the present in ‘actually good condition’, describing the viewing figures as ‘nonetheless actually aggressive on a Saturday night time’.
‘I bowed out in my soccer profession after I felt it was the best time. I really feel that is now the best time.
‘It is the flagship BBC Sports activities programme, hopefully, it at all times will likely be.’
Final yr, Lineker was briefly suspended from internet hosting Match Of The Day after his tweet concerning the British authorities’s asylum coverage sparked a row concerning the company’s presenters expressing political opinions on social media.
‘I’ve had quite a lot of chaos over the past couple of years in some ways,’ Lineker joked, saying he was on ‘first-name phrases with a number of the folks that stand exterior my entrance door’.
He added that he was shocked by ‘the quantity of affection’ he has obtained since information of his departure broke, which he described as ‘a bit bonkers’.
‘I did not assume it will be fairly the massive deal that it was – it is only a man that has completed a TV present for a very long time, it is nothing greater than,’ he mentioned.
Lineker will proceed with the MOTD Prime Ten podcast alongside his The Relaxation Is Soccer podcast, which additionally options BBC pundits Alan Shearer and Micah Richards.
Richards described it as a ‘unhappy day’ to be taught of Lineker leaving Match Of The Day.
‘You have been within the sport for 25 years on the highest degree, folks do not try this, and you have completed that for 25 years,’ he mentioned on the podcast.
‘It’s a unhappy day, not only for us, however for individuals who have watched you over time, as a result of you’re a nice of broadcasting.
‘Sure, you are not leaving but, however by way of Match Of The Day, I simply need to thanks a lot for all the things you have completed, not only for me, however for everybody related and who has watched you over time.’
Shearer described Lineker as an ‘unbelievable participant, enjoying on the highest degree for years and years and years’ and an ‘unbelievable presenter for years and years and years’.
Lineker has been the BBC’s highest-paid on-air expertise for seven consecutive years and was estimated to have earned £1.35 million within the yr 2023/24, based on the company’s annual report revealed in July.
The BBC mentioned future plans for Match Of The Day can be ‘introduced sooner or later’.
MailOnline has contacted the BBC for remark.
