FORMER Match of the Day host Des Lynam has criticised female ex-professionals working as pundits in the men’s soccer game.
The former BBC presenter feels there is space in the game for female hosts, but not for their punditry on male soccer.
Desmond Michael Lynam (now 81) was born in Ennis, Co. Clare. When his family moved to Brighton, England, when he was a child, he recalls that he still had a strong Clare accent. This eventually moderated, eventually becoming RP. His relaxed, down-to-earth style was very popular with viewers.
In a recent interview with the Radio Times magazine he said that the ‘female voice’ is not equipped for performing punditry or handling commentary during matches. “I’ve got no gripe with female presenters, but when you’re a pundit and you’re offering opinions about the game, you have to have played it at the level you are talking – ie, the men’s game,” he said.
Lynam also had criticism for how much Gary Lineker is paid: between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999 for the 2023/24 season and is the BBC’s top earner.
Speaking to the Radio Times magazine, Lynam gave his own thoughts on Lineker as a presenter: “When I left, he immediately got the job and he grew into it very rapidly. I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but for my money I think he does a first-class job.”
Lynam presented Match of the Day between 1988 and 1999, with Lineker having been with the show ever since then.
One of the most popular presenters on the BBC, he stayed with the broadcaster until 1999 when he moved to ITV. From then onwards his career waned. He has voiced regrets about his decision to leave the BBC. In The Mirror he said of the move: “It had so many repercussions and shook me up so much. . . If it was a decision I had to make now I probably wouldn’t do it. I went from being a great broadcaster, or at least a very acceptably good one, to being a somewhat inadequate one overnight.”
He decided to leave ITV in 2004 to present Countdown as a replacement for Richard Whiteley.