Mac serves up a fresh barrage in wages row

JOHN McENROE has hit back at critics of his BBC pay packet by maintaining he is worth every penny of what he is paid to work at Wimbledon. The former Centre Court firebrand believes male and female broadcasters should be rewarded on the basis of merit, rather than gender. Martina Navratilova ignited a Wimbledon pay row earlier this year when she revealed that in 2017 she was paid a tenth of what her 59-year-old fellow exchampion received. Now McEnroe, who will be back on the screens next week, has insisted that the worth of on-air talent is difficult to quantify, but that he deserves the £150,000plus he earns from the state broadcaster. ‘It’s not a black and white issue,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it’s simply like people receiving the same pay, you’re not going out and playing Wimbledon or the US Open, this is a totally different animal. ‘We can agree on that right? It’s sort of like if you work at a magazine or a paper and there’s a woman and man — you’re going to get paid based on, you know, the job that you do in the opinion of the paper. Right? ‘And if the girl does the better job she should get more money. That’s what it boils down to.’ McEnroe — who is also much in demand from American broadcasters in tennis — is unaware what his fellow commentators and presenters are paid, including Navratilova. However, the former ladies champion earlier this month hinted strongly that she had received a substantial pay rise in the wake of the wider BBC pay debate. She tweeted that she would be Hitting back: John McEnroe working for the corporation at Wimbledon this year, saying that she was ‘very happy’ and that ‘it’s good to see the BBC taking gender pay equality seriously’. This contrasted with her comments in March, when she told a Panorama investigation: ‘I’m not happy. It’s shocking... it’s still a good old boys’ network.’ As he prepares to take up his duties next week McEnroe underlined that he was unbothered about the varying pay scales. ‘As far as the other stuff I don’t know, I don’t know what she gets and she doesn’t know what I get and I don’t know what most people get. I’ve not spoken to her. ‘But we’re not in the same place that often, it doesn’t come up.’ Asked who he rates particularly among his colleagues he singles out Sue Barker, who is the BBC’s highest-paid sports broadcaster after Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer, according to official figures. ‘I believe that Sue does a very good job,’ he said before adding in jocular fashion: ‘But don’t tell her that, because her head is already very big.’