Yahoo News Piers Morgan urges Gary Lineker to 'attack' the BBC over salary increases
Piers Morgan has urged Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker to “attack” the BBC over its decision to increase the salaries of its highest-paid stars after announcing their plans to cut free TV licenses for over-75s.
Morgans comments came on Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain, when he and co-host Susanna Reid were discussing the BBC’s annual salary list, which has come under fire.
It was revealed that Lineker is the broadcaster’s highest-paid star, earning £1,750,000-£1,754,999 a year, and Morgan has now urged him to call out the BBC for increasing his wages in light of their decision to scrap free TV licences for over-75s.
Read more: Piers Morgan defends Amanda Holden as her 'feud' with Phillip Schofield continues
'If I were Gary Lineker I would come out on Twitter this morning and I would attack the decision [by the BBC] to take the TV licences away from pensioners.' - @piersmorgan pic.twitter.com/6SsBE4J1Bw
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) July 3, 2019
“If I was Gary Lineker, I would come out and whack this, I would, I would call their bluff,” began Morgan.
“He fights for every other underdog on Twitter, he’s a good friend of mine, I completely defend him on this, I don’t think he’s to blame.
“If I were Gary I would come out on Twitter this morning and attack the decision to take the TV licences away from the pensioners, I would.
“It would be a very brave thing for him to do. I think he would earn a lot of favours, he’s just getting killed, he’s just getting killed through no fault of his own.”
Read more: Piers Morgan and Amanda Knox in furious spat over interview snub
'What they [the BBC] promised to do was to take over the responsibility for it. That was the mistake because unless you're going to continue to provide those free TV licences [for over 75s] they shouldn't have agreed to it.' - @susannareid100 pic.twitter.com/5jvFHPLUep
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) July 3, 2019
Morgan went on to say that Lineker could actually be getting paid more by any other network, including ITV.
“It’s a fact, people may not like it, you can obviously say a nurse gets thirty to forty grand a year, if they’re lucky £20,000. And so you can get X gazillion nurses for a Lineker but that’s not how the reality of the market place works in television.”
Morgan also claimed that this could be the “beginning of the end” of the BBC, stating that they have some “big” questions to answer regarding their scrapping of free TV licenses for over-75s.
“I genuinely think it could be the beginning of the end of the BBC. You watch what happened I’m telling you, it’s the beginning of the end for the BBC because once you lose public trust, then the public desire to help you by giving you money for what you do disappears.”
