Gary Lineker on raising awareness, racial injustice and why footballers still love the FA Cup

It’s been an eventful few months for Gary Lineker.

The limelight is usually on the Match of the Day presenter on a Saturday night, but after using his platform of over five million followers on Twitter to spread a message at odds with many of the more right-wing newspapers he found himself in it more often.

“I think it would be a bit of a waste not to use it to put my views over about things,” Lineker, who will be presenting the BBC’s FA Cup third round coverage this weekend, said over the phone. “I’m very lucky to have a platform on the scale that I have. All I do is if I feel strongly about something I’ll tweet about it.”

The former Leicester, Everton, Spurs and Barcelona player has been beamed into many of our homes since childhood, whether as the face of Walkers or highlights shows.

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Watching him speak out at a time of increased tension in the UK, to enable a conversation, has felt important. With an audience of over five million mostly football fans not everybody is going to agree with Lineker’s tweets, but he’s opened up a space where, hopefully, some sensible discussion can take place.

Lineker said he gets “a lot of positive stuff and some negative” in response to his tweets, something he’s previously said gives him proof that the “vast majority of people in this country are decent, caring human beings”.

Besides, he doesn’t have any problem holding his own. It’s not just the plight of refugees trying to make their way to safety that has had Lineker tweeting. The man who’s scored more goals at World Cups for England than anyone else has also been trying to draw attention to the Movement for Black Lives, through Ava DuVernay’s excellent documentary 13th.

By tracing the story of mass imprisonment back to its first inception following the abolition of slavery, when “except as a punishment for crime” was written into the 13th amendment outlawing the slave trade, the documentary shows how the idea of a “criminal” and “crime” has become a code word for African Americans.

Lineker admitted that prior to watching 13th, which is available on Netflix, he was “totally unaware”.

“It’s obviously completely prejudiced against black people in America. It was an eye-opening thing, and obviously the reaction from that you see it’s actually not that dissimilar here,” he said.

The emergence of Lineker as someone unafraid to speak his mind has given activists an ally in a powerful position where traditionally they may not have had one.

We already knew the despicable obstacles black people in America and the UK have to overcome, but plenty of the Match of the Day host’s followers may not have done, or may have been told a different story.

“It makes you think and hopefully when people see it, it makes them think,” he said – adding with a chuckle: “If they want to.”

He explained: “(You) try and get people to watch these kinds of things and hopefully it makes a difference.

“That’s what you want to do really, raise awareness, whatever the issue. Whether it’s political, humanitarian, whatever it is, give your view, what you think is right, and then see where it leads.”

We did also get time to talk football with one of England’s favourite footballing sons, with Lineker still an advocate for reducing the Premier League to 18 teams, and essentially anything that will leave domestic clubs with more chance of performing well in Europe.

The FA Cup still holds significance for Lineker, although he admitted it’s fallen down the pecking order since he was a boy.

“It’s the second-biggest domestic competition in our country and it’s still the most adored domestic cup competition in world football,” he said.

“That day out at Wembley is still something all players look to have as one of their ambitions.”

Gary Lineker presents live FA Cup 3rd round coverage of West Ham v Manchester City on Friday January 6 (19.55, BBC One) and Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa on Sunday January 8 (16.00, BBC One).