It is such a pity that Gary Lineker is leaving the BBC in this manner. His comments outside of sport have brought the world tumbling down on him and, clearly, it was a nonsense for him to have shared what is deemed to be an anti-Semitic message.

While Lineker has frequently shared content on social media that has fallen within the scope of the BBC’s new social media guidelines, the image of the cartoon rat – an antisemitic trope that harks back to 1930s Nazi Germany – has been heavily criticized. Lineker has since deleted the post. The BBC declined comment.