Lineker quits Mail on Sunday after Triesman sting

By Tom Degun in London

May 18 – Gary Lineker (pictured) has quit his weekly column in the Mail on Sunday after the newspaper published a story of Lord Triesman’s secretly recorded conversation which may have seriously damaged England’s 2018 World Cup bid.

In a taped-recorded conversation with Melissa Jacobs, a civil servant he employed as a private secretary when he was a Minister at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, Triesman was accused of making a series of explosive allegations about rival bidders Russia and Spain in a story published on the front page the Mail on Sunday.

The story led to Triesman’s immediate resignation as the chairman of the Football Association and of its bid to host the 2018 World Cup and forced the bid team to fax apologies to Russia, Spain and FIFA.

And Lineker, a former England striker turned BBC presenter who is an official ambassador of the bid, believes that the Mail on Sunday’s story had little merit but did potentially serious damage to the countries chances of hosting the 2018 tournament.

Lineker said: “The story itself, the circumstances surrounding it and the actions of the Mail on Sunday in publishing it have undermined the bid to bring the World Cup to England in 2018.

“I wholeheartedly support the bid, because I believe that hosting the tournament would be brilliant for the country and I am an official ambassador for it.

“I have therefore taken the view that I cannot continue as a columnist for the Mail on Sunday.”

Lineker had been writing the weekly column in the Mail on Sunday for six months following the death of former England manager Sir Bobby Robson who had occupied the slot before him but both Lineker and his agent Jon Holmes were critical of the paper’s decision to run the Triesman story.

Holmes said: “The story showed crass judgment.

“It had dubious journalistic merit, was clearly obtained by entrapment and was timed to do the maximum damage to the World Cup bid, which Gary and all football fans in this country passionately support.

“We wanted to make our position clear and to do all we can now to help persuade FIFA that England is the best country to host a great World Cup in 2018.”

The Mail on Sunday is understood to have paid 37-year-old Jacobs £75,000 ($109,000) for the tape-recorded conversation which Triesman has described as entrapment.

And after receiving widespread criticism for publishing the story, the paper released a statement to defend their actions.

The statement said: “This story concerns very serious allegations of corruption at the highest level of sport, made by the man who was leading the England World Cup bid.

“The public are clearly entitled to know about such allegations, which are quite rightly now the subject of a FIFA investigation.

“We would also like to make it clear that Melissa Jacobs put details of her relationship with Lord Triesman on the internet and made her recording of her conversation with him without the knowledge or involvement of the Mail on Sunday.

“There is no question of entrapment; the paper was simply reporting events that had already taken place.

“We made it absolutely clear to Gary Lineker that he could express his views about this story in his column with complete freedom.

“We regret that he turned down this offer.

“The Mail on Sunday gives its full support to the England 2018 bid and notes that many commentators believe its chance of success is as strong as ever.”

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