Latest news with #GaryLineker
The Independent
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Gabby Logan thought public ‘didn't like her' after Strictly exit
Broadcaster Gabby Logan revealed she cried after being eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing in 2007, having been told she was too competitive. Logan, who finished 11th with partner James Jordan, reflected that her competitive nature, valued in sports, was not appreciated on the show. She believes there was a societal shift between 2007 and 2012, where competitive women became celebrated, unlike her experience on Strictly. Logan stated she was not playing the game expected of a woman at the time, implying a need for faux humility. Gabby Logan, alongside Kelly Cates and Mark Chapman, is set to take over Gary Lineker 's role as Match of the Day presenters for the upcoming football season.
Times
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Gabby Logan: ‘I was told I was too competitive for a woman'
Gabby Logan is posing in a pair of form-hugging PVC trousers and killer heels, with her shoulders adorned in fur. And as her last photo is taken she delivers a diva punchline to bring the house down: 'Well, that's my Match of the Day outfit sorted then.' If only. Logan takes the helm of the BBC's TV institution in August (along with Kelly Cates and Mark Chapman) following the recent departure of Gary Lineker. I dare you to wear that outfit, I say. 'The BBC don't say anything much about clothes, but they might say something about an outfit like that. So I don't think I'm going to rattle the cage,' she muses as we sit down to talk. MOTD is the longest-running football show in the world. To paraphrase Labour campaign watchers, she is about to walk across a highly polished floor holding a Ming vase. Is she nervous? 'Before any broadcast, I get just nervous enough to give a good performance. Before I had children I was quite superstitious. I'd wear the same coloured pants or walk the same route through the corridor to the studio for luck. But kids take you out of yourself. Now it's about being totally prepared so you feel adrenalised, excited.' Did Gary leave her a note, maybe some crisps? 'No. But our initials are the same so the door sign is the same.' When Logan was recruited by Sky TV back in the Nineties, her new bosses sent her out on the town with a fashion stylist. They drank champagne and then spent £5,000 on Prada, Armani and Kenzo clothes. Does MOTD do the same? 'Would it surprise you to hear the answer is no?' OK, one more, this time more serious: Lineker was the highest-paid BBC presenter, on £1.35 million a year. Has Logan demanded equal pay? 'That's all sorted,' she says. What does that mean? 'It's sorted.' A bumper summer of women's sport Her response is a swift reminder that we are not here to discuss MOTD but something possibly even bigger. Logan is about to front an unprecedented summer of women's sport coverage on the BBC. Women's football (the Euros begin in July), rugby (the World Cup is in August), not to mention cricket, tennis, athletics (the World Championships are in September) and netball. 'No sidelines, no second billing,' says the official Beeb announcement. There will be a grassroots campaign to get more girls and women participating too. 'Names will be made,' they predict. 'Think back to the women's Euros in 2022,' Logan enthuses. 'Lots of people didn't know who Alessia Russo, Chloe Kelly, Ella Toone or Ellen White were and it was such a joy to see them emerge as household names. Heroes, basically. And there are so many more to come.' Who might be the new stars? Look out for Aggie Beever-Jones (the England international and Chelsea star who recently scored a hat-trick against Portugal in the women's Nations League) and Ellie Kildunne (the England rugby union star and 2024 World Rugby's women's player of the year). 'A lot of these women are already very well known within sporting circles, but they really deserve wider recognition. And that means both women and men watching. With football particularly, I think sometimes the narrative can be: 'No men's Euros or World Cup this summer — it's going to be a quiet one.' It's really not. Across all these sports, there is amazing female talent waiting to be discovered.' Logan is of course a former international athlete herself — she was a gymnast for Wales at the 1990 Commonwealth Games but retired due to injury aged 17. Her father is the former Leeds United and Wales international footballer Terry Yorath and, as a young girl, she loved that game too. Could she have made it as a player with the right encouragement? It's easy to forget the FA actually banned women from using its facilities between 1921 and 1971. 'I was thinking about this recently,' she muses. 'Could I have made it? I would love to have played alongside England's all-time greatest, Kelly Smith. [The former England international was so determined to play football as a girl, she joined a boys' club in Watford aged seven. She became the top scorer, but was then kicked out after the parents of opposing teams complained.] But the determination you needed to succeed without facilities or media interest was incredible.' I spoke to Logan two years ago when she commentated on the women's World Cup final in Australia. At the time Neymar, the Brazilian star of the men's game, had just signed a deal worth £129 million a year playing for the Saudi Arabian team Al-Hilal; Cristiano Ronaldo, meanwhile, earns more than £170 million a year at another Saudi Arabian club. Logan remarked that the men's game seemed 'a bit broken'. Can the women's game avoid that? 'This is the balancing act the women's game has got. They want the same brand deals as the men's game to bring more money in and grow the sport but without losing the connectivity with fans. I don't think anyone would disagree that the men's game has lost a little bit of that. You always see the women go to talk to the fans after a match. There are some amazing men too but it feels as though the stakes are so much higher — there's the whole 'talking behind the hand' thing because of lip-reading which is everywhere now. It feels harder to connect. But I would add: the fans in the men's game still care passionately. I have spoken to Sunderland, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest fans recently: the passion is still incredible.' Is any player worth £170 million a year? 'You're worth what someone decides to pay you. There's a lot of debate about players taking the money to play in Saudi Arabia but you can't walk in their shoes. You don't know if they're giving that money to the town they came from or building schools. So many players do that but it doesn't get the coverage because it's not exciting. And in terms of entertainment, would you apply that to the music industry and say Elton John isn't worth that money? Or that movie star isn't worth it for a film?' 'I want as many people to participate in sport in a safe and fair way' OK, women's sport can feel refreshingly wholesome — except perhaps in one area. It's been two months since the Supreme Court ruled that under equalities law, a woman is defined by biological sex, not gender identity. What is Logan's view on the ruling and what effect will it have on women's sport this summer? 'I'm not going to talk about that,' she says firmly. I am surprised. Logan has previously supported the former British Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies's stand on trans women in women's sport. 'I think we need to protect women's sport. That's why I think it's good what Sharron Davies is doing at the moment, in terms of talking about it,' she told a newspaper in 2019. 'We're dealing with science here. This is not about attacking a community; it's about saying: how can we make this a fair place for women to compete?' Is it fair to quote that as your rough position? 'I think that pertains to a conversation as much as anything,' Logan says. 'People having a forum to debate and have a conversation about something. I want as many people to participate in sport in a safe and fair way, whatever that looks like.' It feels like the Supreme Court ruling should make this issue easier to discuss. Why is it still so political and polarising? 'You tell me. Maybe there's a vacuum somewhere that's allowed it to become so polarising, which is disappointing.' We are sitting in a quiet corner of a photo studio. These exchanges feel like a half-hearted game of ping-pong in a very rundown youth centre. I get it. Logan is here representing the BBC and broadcasters are incredibly nervous about the gender debate. Days after we speak, the tennis legend and TV pundit Martina Navratilova is censored on ITV's X channel after posting comments about the controversial Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. But it's a shame because on social media and in her 2022 memoir, The First Half, Logan is often both funny and bolshy. On X she has variously questioned Brexit, trolled Melania Trump's fashion choices, denounced Donald Trump and come out in support of Marcus Rashford's campaign for free school meals during the Covid pandemic. 'I found the people opposing Marcus Rashford totally baffling,' she says, rallying. 'This is a kid who knows what it's like [Rashford was brought up by a single mother] trying to use his position in a positive way. I grew up when football players were constantly being bashed for their lavish lifestyles, so the 'stick to football' attitude was very disappointing.' 'After my brother died, I promised him to live my life for two people' The 'wild west' of social media is where you find no-nonsense Logan. In fact, swagger into Gabby's Bar with a bad attitude and you are probably leaving through the window. In her memoir she calls the BBC broadcasting legend Des Lynam 'the master', but is more than ready to put him straight now. Last year Lynam said he had 'no gripe' with female presenters but that, '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 about — ie, the men's game.' 'It's really strange for Des Lynam to be coming at it from that angle when he's never played the game at that level, has he?' she says. Elsewhere the billionaire former Spurs chairman Lord Sugar expressed concern that, while women pundits often comment on the men's game, there were no men covering the women's 2022 Euros tournament. 'Given the viewing figures for the women's Euros and the excitement around the whole tournament, I think perhaps Sir Alan misjudged that one,' she says. That's Logan all over. She is diligent and head-girlish, but then she's had to be. Her early life was happy, exciting even. With her mum, Christine, and siblings — sister Louise and brothers Daniel and Jordan — she moved around while her dad played in Leeds, London, even Canada. But the day 15-year-old Daniel died suddenly while playing football in the back garden (he had an undiagnosed heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), things changed overnight. Daniel and his father were very close and, heartbroken, Terry Yorath's life spun out of control; he became depressed and drank to excess. The marriage eventually fell apart. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Logan pulled herself together. In the funeral parlour, seeing her brother for the last time, she made him a promise: 'I am going to do everything I can to make your life count.' 'Yes, to live my life for two people,' she says today. The tragedy and her sporting instincts drove her to achieve and yet Logan has learnt that competitive women ruffle feathers. The moment of truth, she says, came while appearing with her husband, the former Scotland rugby international Kenny Logan, on Strictly Come Dancing in 2007. While Kenny was lauded as the game bruiser twirling through the pasa doble in a kilt, she was seen as trying too hard. Kenny came 5th, Gabby Logan was eliminated early in 11th place. It really hurt her. In The First Half she says the day she left she cried, 'People really don't like me,' into her sofa. Why did it hurt so much? 'Because I was kicked out! And it was a harsh lesson, learning that sometimes not everyone likes you. You realise the parts of your personality that you thought were attributes as a sportswoman are not valued. I was told I was being too competitive, whereas I was thinking, 'I thought that was good. That's what I did in sport — and it worked — and that's what my husband is doing.' I actually reckon there was a societal shift between that show in 2007 and 2012. At the 2012 Olympics we started to appreciate tough, competitive women. We made heroes of them. But in 2007 I wasn't playing the game expected of a woman.' What would a woman 'playing the game' look like? 'Oh, it would have served me to say,' — she bats her eyelids and smiles — ' 'Oh gosh, whatever, that's fine! I'm just happy to be here!' rather than trying hard. But you have to decide if that's you, and that's something I'm not compromising on.' There was another significant fallout from Daniel's death: the disrupted relationship with her father led her into an unhealthy pattern when choosing men. 'For a few years I sought the company of not very appropriate, older men,' she writes in her book. Most notable was Gary Staines, a long-distance runner who took a shine to her at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. She was 16. Staines was 26 and engaged. A year later his marriage ended and Logan moved into his London flat. Logan ended the relationship once she was at Durham University, where she read law. But by her early twenties, despite having cut her teeth on local radio and making a name for herself as a presenter at Sky Sports, Logan was feeling lost. With her husband and Prince Charles at a reception for the Prince's Trust, 2013 PA 'I didn't like myself very much,' she says. 'I was probably wanting to mend something because our family was quite broken, because of my brother dying. I felt I could create something like a family, a happy place. Those were the relationships I was pursuing. But a bit of guidance from a therapist helped me recognise those patterns were not healthy. That was a good time for it to happen, because in my early twenties I realised I wasn't enjoying relationships I was in. It didn't seem like a good way to be.' 'Thank God I am married to a normal bloke' Early in 1999 Logan was on her way home from dinner with a girlfriend who suggested a late drink in a bar. Logan didn't want to go; she was still queasy from an uncomfortable New Year's Eve dalliance: 'a cigar-smoking wide boy' she'd snogged and who wanted her to do cocaine in the lavatories at a London cabaret (she didn't). Nevertheless, she and the friend slipped into London's K Bar and she was introduced to Kenny Logan. Early portents weren't great. He was drunk and thought he was talking to the former Big Breakfast presenter Gaby Roslin. Nevertheless they hit it off. 'Thank God I am married to a normal bloke who isn't an addict,' she says in her book, and is very funny about Kenny bouncing her off the water bed in her London townhouse during their early years together. 'He's still my number one,' she says. In recent years her marriage to Kenny has become something of a minor sporting spectacle in itself. Logan has been disarmingly honest about how the menopause affected her sex drive ('Is this going to become a duty?') until she took HRT. And it was a 2021 edition of podcast The that prompted Kenny to get himself checked out for prostate cancer; he tested positive. He has made a full recovery but both have been refreshingly open about the impact of the disease on their relationship: Kenny talked us through his testicles growing to 'the size of tennis balls' and the month it took post-surgery to get any erectile 'movement'. 'We decided: we have a platform — let's use it for good,' Logan says. 'We get a lot of great feedback from people who say they took action [about their health]. I'm sure our kids have been teased about it more than we know, but they also feel grateful that their dad's life was, if not saved, at least spared from something more serious.' As a teenager herself she says she was too tall and flat-chested to be fancied by boys. She didn't drink and was dedicated to her sport. No wonder, as a 16-year-old at the Commonwealth Games, she was baffled as to why male competitors wanted to hang out with her and her sister Louise — who went on to become a model — or why the Sultan of Brunei's brother, Prince Jefri, sent her a Brunei team tracksuit as a gift along with his phone number. 'I just thought, 'Oh, nice tracksuit,' ' Logan recalls now. 'I only really read about him afterwards.' Prince Jefri reportedly owned more than 2,000 cars and enjoyed entertaining on a superyacht called Tits. Why did it take her so long to realise that, in her own words, many sports people at major tournaments are 'on heat'? 'I was very young, but when you step back it's obvious, isn't it? All these very fit, healthy people who train so hard — and, if my experience is anything to go by, miss out on so many social events because they are trying to get their gymnastics right — are suddenly ready to mingle. You're done training and there are lots of other fit, lovely people around who also want to let off a bit of steam. It's no great surprise that there are romantic liaisons. I believe the French handed out more condoms than ever at the Paris Olympics. It's the swimmers you have to watch out for — their events always finish first. And if you get up at 5am to train for your whole life and you are superfit and you finish your competition, you deserve to party, right? Just don't live next to the swimmers in the village if you want a good night's sleep.' Back then a young athlete could make mistakes — she is clear the relationship with Gary Staines 'should never have happened' — but we now live in a world of social media. As a leading broadcaster, the scrutiny and abuse are intense. Logan has been told to 'get back in the kitchen' on X; and in the last year alone she has been taken to task for wishing viewers a 'happy festive season' instead of saying 'Christmas' and for using the term 'cock-up' while commentating on last year's Olympics. 'You have to decide how much it's going to invade your sanity,' she says. 'The people that matter to me, I will always listen to their opinion. I am just glad I stopped my kids having phones till they were 16 so they could at least have a taste of what I had: the chance to be in the moment, even to make mistakes.' Dress, Shoes, Earrings, ROBERT WILSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE Lois is at university and Reuben a rugby player for Northampton Saints (he joins Sale Sharks next season). They are relaxed about their mum's achievements, although there was a flurry of texts when she got the MOTD job. 'It's an institution, so of course it was huge for them too,' she says, smiling. But first, this summer of women's sport will be the fruition of years of determined, unrecognised effort. There are parallels with Logan's TV career. Aged 11, she watched a VHS tape of the 1984 Olympics over and over again, noting even then that only men seemed to be presenters. In her twenties, at Sky TV, her boss told her that her career would be over when she was 28, and in her early thirties she very nearly gave up after being sidelined at ITV. She took a 66 per cent pay cut to join the BBC. She had just had children when ITV let her go. Wasn't she suspicious? 'No. That's TV. I had a real crisis of confidence. I wondered, 'Am I any good at this job?' But the truth is, sometimes people just aren't into you.' No wonder her X profile simply says, 'Still here.' 'I owe my opportunities to some quite strident women in TV before me who said, 'It's not right that we get chucked off air just because we hit 40,' ' she asserts. 'Women like Kirsty Wark, presenting Newsnight into her sixties. Like the sportswomen we will hopefully celebrate this summer, I feel I am very much standing on the shoulders of giants.'
The National
a day ago
- Politics
- The National
Paolo Nutini calls for suspension of arms sales to Israel
The letter, first published last month and organised by Choose Love, has now been signed by more than 400 people, including former Match of the Day host Gary Lineker and stars Dua Lipa and Benedict Cumberbatch. READ MORE: Police Scotland urged to reject 'misogynistic' pregnancy loss guidance It calls on the Prime Minister to 'use all available means' to ensure humanitarian aid gets into Gaza and 'make a commitment to the children of Gaza' that he would broker an 'immediate and permanent ceasefire'. Other public figures who have since signed the letter include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, author Michael Rosen and actors Florence Pugh and Stanley Tucci. Josie Naughton, CEO of Choose Love, said: 'Since we urged the Government to end its complicity in the horrors of Gaza, more people have added their voice to our call. 'We cannot be silent while children are being killed and families are being starved.' Following publication of the initial letter in May, Choose Love staged a vigil outside Parliament in which a number of signatories read out the names of 15,613 children killed in Gaza. In September, the UK Government suspended around 30 of 350 licences to Israel amid concerns the equipment would be used to breach international law in the country's brutal assault on Gaza. Last month, The National reported how the Labour Government has licensed exports of more military equipment to Israel in the final three months of 2024 than the Tories did for all of 2020-2023. Labour are being urged to impose a complete ban on arms sales to Israel, including on parts for the F-35 jet, which is used by Israel to bombard Gaza. READ MORE: David Lammy heads to US as Donald Trump considers whether to strike Iran However, the UK Government has previously insisted that halting the export of spare F-35 parts is not possible because the UK is part of a global supply chain, claiming it has no control over where the parts end up. Naughton added: 'The situation is changing by the second, but until the UK Government has halted all arms sales and licences to Israel, ensured that humanitarian aid can reach people starving inside Gaza and stopped the killing, they will not have done enough.' A UK Government spokesperson said: 'We strongly oppose the expansion of military operations in Gaza and call on the Israeli Government to cease its offensive and immediately allow for unfettered access to humanitarian aid. 'The denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population in Gaza is unacceptable and risks breaching international humanitarian law. 'Last year, we suspended export licences to Israel for items used in military operations in Gaza and continue to refuse licences for military goods that could be used by Israel in the current conflict. 'We urge all parties to urgently agree a ceasefire agreement and work towards a permanent and sustainable peace.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Jeremy Vine: BBC stars who share their views are ‘less interesting'
Jeremy Vine has become the latest BBC broadcaster to take aim at colleagues who disregard the corporation's impartiality rules, warning that presenters who express personal views on air become 'much less interesting'. Speaking to Radio Times, the 60-year-old presenter said neutrality was the 'price of the ticket' for having what he called 'the best job in the world', referring to his work on Radio 2 and Channel 5. 'I'm there to facilitate,' Vine said. 'There's a cadre of presenters and you know what their views are on everything. But once you start to put your views on the table, you become much less interesting as a presenter.' His remarks follow the high-profile departure of Gary Lineker, the former Match of the Day host, who left the BBC after repeated controversies over his political posts on social media. In one instance, Lineker shared a pro-Palestinian video featuring a rat emoji - an image historically associated with Nazi propaganda used to dehumanise Jews. He later apologised, stating: 'I would never consciously repost anything anti-Semitic - it goes against everything I stand for.' However, the row escalated after Lineker gave an interview in which he not only criticised Israel but also took aim at his BBC boss. Despite his long-standing status as the BBC's highest-paid presenter, the broadcaster ultimately severed ties, having 'run out of patience' with his outspoken political commentary. Vine himself has previously been found in breach of the BBC's impartiality guidelines, after posting in favour of low-traffic neighbourhoods on social media in 2022. At the time, the BBC clarified that the finding did not apply to posts where he expressed personal enthusiasm for cycling, a topic he is well known for championing. He recently announced he would stop sharing his viral 'near miss' cycling videos, captured via a 360-degree helmet camera, due to online trolling. 'The trolling just got too bad,' he admitted. 'They have had well over 100 million views, but in the end the anger they generate has genuinely upset me. 'My aim was only to get all of us who drive to think about the dangers of trying to move around cities on a pushbike. I know I've sometimes got a little cross when a driver has, say, pulled out without looking, but I only ever uploaded the film to show the danger.' Vine's comments echo concerns raised by other senior broadcasters over the direction of BBC journalism. Her comments follow similar concerns raised by former Today presenter Mishal Husain, who left the Radio 4 flagship show in 2023. She shared her concern about 'personality-focused journalism' and the rise of ego in broadcasting Kirsty Wark, who stepped down from Newsnight last year after three decades, criticised the trend of opinion-led broadcasting in an interview on The Spectator's Women With Balls podcast. 'We are not the story,' she said, calling for the BBC to remain a 'trusted friend'. Wark stressed the importance of maintaining impartiality: 'What it is, is just straightforward basic journalism - do the journalism, act like a journalist.' While she did not name individual colleagues, Wark warned against presenters editorialising on air or inserting themselves into stories. 'Our job is to winkle that information out of other people. Our job is not to give our own opinion to the audience - absolutely not to editorialise,' she said. 'Be more straightforward. It's not about us. We always should remember that - it's not about us.' Her comments follow similar concerns raised by former Today presenter Mishal Husain, who left the Radio 4 flagship show in 2023. Speaking to British Vogue, Husain expressed concern about 'personality-focused journalism' and the rise of ego in broadcasting. 'It doesn't have to be about the presenters centring themselves,' she said. 'Hopefully, if they're a personality with journalistic integrity, journalistic values, then they can be a conduit to the news for people. What was true to me was that I would very rarely use the word 'I' actually on air.'
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Jeremy Vine hits out at BBC stars who express their views
Jeremy Vine has suggested that fellow BBC presenters who break impartiality rules and express their views are 'less interesting'. The 60-year-old, who presents on Radio 2 and Channel 5, said the 'price' he paid for his job was his inability to express his personal opinions. Speaking to Radio Times, he said: 'It's the best job in the world … and the price of the ticket is that I don't express my views. 'There's a cadre of presenters and you know what their views are on everything. But once you start to put your views on the table, you become much less interesting as a presenter.' 'I'm there to facilitate,' he added. His comments come after Gary Lineker, the former Match of the Day presenter, was recently forced to leave the BBC without a payoff following a row over anti-Semitism. The BBC's highest-earning presenter, who had helmed the broadcaster's football coverage for more two decades, left the corporation after he used Instagram to promote a pro-Palestinian video featuring a rat emoji – an icon used by the Nazis as a slur against Jewish people. In an interview with The Telegraph, Lineker then went further than ever in his comments about Israel and also criticised his boss at the BBC. Lineker apologised and said he would 'never consciously repost anything anti-Semitic – it goes against everything I stand for'. But bosses at the corporation had reportedly run out of patience with his outspoken political views. Vine, meanwhile, has previously breached the corporation's impartiality rules by voicing his support for low-traffic neighbourhoods on X, formerly Twitter, in 2022. However, the corporation stressed at the time that its finding had no bearing on any social media activity in which Vine expressed his 'personal enthusiasm for cycling'. The keen cyclist and social media crusader for road safety has recently announced that he will stop sharing his 'near misses' cycling videos on social media because of online trolling. Previously he would regularly post footage of his daily commute taken from his 360-degree helmet camera, which often triggered lively debate between cyclists and motorists. He said: 'The trolling just got too bad. They have had well over 100 million views, but in the end the anger they generate has genuinely upset me. 'My aim was only to get all of us who drive to think about the dangers of trying to move around cities on a pushbike. I know I've sometimes got a little cross when a driver has, say, pulled out without looking, but I only ever uploaded the film to show the danger.' Speaking to Radio Times about his 'heated debates' while presenting his Radio 2 and Channel 5 shows, he said the biggest divide in Britain to him seemed to be 'generational'. Vine said: 'I have a listener who rings up – he's 80 years old – and he says that the reason young people can't buy a house is because they spend all their time in Paris. 'Then a young person rings up and says, 'We're having experiences because we can't afford a house'.'
