Mark Lawrenson gives verdict on Gary Lineker's Match of Day salary after 'hopeless' claim

Liverpool great Mark Lawrenson has weighed in on Gary Lineker's handsome BBC earnings. He believes the former striker started out as 'hopeless' in the media, but now holds him in high esteem.

A long-time pundit on Match of the Day, Lawrenson often shared the screen with Lineker, defining Saturday evening (or Sunday morning) viewing for a generation of football fans. The previous generation had grown up watching the Republic of Ireland international excel for Liverpool, where he made over 350 total appearances.

Lawrenson continued to work for the BBC after being replaced as a regular on the show. He famously got a little carried away during the peak of the Jurgen Klopp era, while the team went toe-to-toe with Manchester City; he went 159 matches without predicting a loss after forecasting a defeat against West Brom in May 2016.

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That probably underlines the difficulties of being unbiased and professional in the sports media industry as a former player — although in fairness, Klopp's Liverpool did not lose often during that period. But Lawrenson has the utmost respect for how Lineker has risen to the top of what is effectively his second profession.

Appearing on the Disruptors Podcast, he was asked if he thought Lineker's £1.35million annual salary from the BBC (for Match of the Day and other work) was fair. "Yeah," he responded simply.

"Because he's very, very good, if you watch the program every week, it's funny, they get to the point and he's got a word for everything. I don't know of any other footballer who could have done that and they wanted a footballer, especially wanting a little bit of a change following Des Lynam [who was] right up there.

"When Gary started on Radio 5, you just thought there's no way in the world he's going to be fronting Match of the Day ever because he was hopeless, his own words not mine. And he slowly but surely got better and from day one, he did really, really well."

Liverpool.com says: Lineker is almost synonymous with Match of the Day at this point. It's hard to imagine how it would continue without him, which goes a long way to explaining why the BBC pays him the big bucks.

No doubt people felt similarly in the days of Des Lynam, but that was when terrestrial television was still at its peak. There was never any real possibility of Match of the Day ceasing to exist, because the football highlights were the big draw. Now that fans can get those in a variety of other places, Lineker and the team need to put on an excellent show each week in order for the beloved show to remain viable.