Is Lineker set for a transfer to BT?

THE loss of Match of the Day highlights rights in the Premier League auction could trigger the departure of star football presenter Gary Lineker from the BBC.

BT Sport have coveted Lineker as their Champions League host since they won the rights from Sky in November 2013 in a three-year agreement with UEFA that starts next season. And initial approaches were said to have been made to Lineker last summer.

But BT are waiting until the outcome of the PL rights tender next month before making their big move for the former Tottenham and England striker, who has established himself as the BBC’s top sports anchor. Losing MotD would leave the corporation with too little football to justify Lineker’s seven-figure salary.

Lineker, who also works for American network NBC, is contracted exclusively to the BBC for one more season in the UK in a deal that runs concurrently with their MotD rights. But it is possible that agreement could be re-negotiated were the BBC to lose their highlights show allowing Lineker to present football on the BBC and BT in a similar scenario that allows Clare Balding to work for the two networks.

BT, having spent an astonishing £897million on capturing the Champions League want to make some big signings — and Lineker fits the bill.

PRINCE Ali of Jordan can at least count on some family advice about the murky world of sports politics in his uphill battle to usurp Sepp Blatter as FIFA President. Ali’s half-brother Prince Feisal is the head of the Jordanian Olympic Committee while sister Princess Haya, wife of racing overlord Sheik Mohammed, is a two-term President of the international equestrian federation. But unfortunately for Ali (above), the biggest sports powerbroker in the Middle East, Sheik Ahmad Al-Sabah — Kuwait’s President of the Association of National Olympic Committees and the kingmaker for IOC President Thomas Bach — has come out strongly in support of Blatter. FOOTBALL agent Tony McGill lost a long legal battle in September with Bolton Wanderers and the Sport Entertainment and Media Group over claims he was cut out of the £1m transfer of Gavin McCann from Aston Villa in 2007.

But eight years on, the dogged McGill, buoyed by the judge calling the result ‘unfortunate’ and describing McCann as being ‘clearly untruthful’ and Bolton chairman Phil Gartside’s evidence ‘unsatisfactory’, is pursuing private prosecutions against Bolton, McCann, Gartside, former manager Sammy Lee as well as former SEM agents Jerome Anderson, Jeff Weston and Dave Sheron.

McCann says he has a district judge ruling for summons to be issued based on his submitted information. Bolton say they have heard nothing and have no case to answer.

THE FA discussed sending a representative to the FIFA reform summit in Brussels on January 21 but decided against it. They did not want their involvement to add extra credence to the event, which is organised by Conservative MP Damian Collins. But the anti-Blatter noise from Collins and Co does suit the FA agenda.