Pressure on BBC chair mounts over Gary Lineker suspension

BBC executives are scrambling to repair relations with Gary Lineker and stave off a staff mutiny at the corporation, with hopes that the presenter could be back in post by next weekend.

The row left the BBC’s chair, Richard Sharp, fighting for his future on Sunday night as Jeremy Hunt stopped short of backing him to guard the corporation’s impartiality in the wake of the row.

The corporation’s director general, Tim Davie, jetted back from the US for crisis talks before an internal meeting on Monday that one source at the broadcaster predicted would be “carnage” if a breakthrough is not reached on Lineker’s suspension from Match of the Day.

Another senior source said talks were “moving but not there yet” in efforts to end the standoff with the star, who was taken off air after a tweet condemning Rishi Sunak’s new migration bill led to an extraordinary exodus of high-profile presenters and commentators.

The row has left the BBC facing its most serious crisis in years. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have said Sharp’s position has become untenable because he is himself compromised on impartiality grounds, having made introductions between Boris Johnson and a friend who gave the former prime minister a loan guarantee.

The former chancellor George Osborne said Sharp’s only hope of staying in post was if he could help broker an end to the standoff between the BBC and Lineker.

Osborne said Lineker “should help the BBC find a ladder down which to climb” but added: “Personally, I think some of the language used on immigration by some Conservatives – not all – is not acceptable.”

Lineker has said he will not apologise for the tweet, which compared language used around migration to that in 1930s Germany. His suspension from