Match of the Day host Gary Lineker has stood by his tweet about the government’s “cruel” asylum policy which resulted in him being taken off air by the BBC.

The former England footballer was asked to “step back” from the popular highlights show over his comments comparing the language used to launch a new government asylum seeker policy to that of 1930s Germany.

He later returned to the presenting role after the row prompted a boycott by his fellow football pundits and commentators, hitting TV and radio coverage across the BBC.

But he told Alastair Campbell during an interview for Men’s Health UK magazine that he stood by his comments.

As part of the publication’s Talking Heads interview series, he said: “When I sent that tweet, it honestly never even crossed my mind that it would lead to where it went.

“I’ve worked with refugees’ charities for years.

“So, when I saw the Suella Braverman film, I said I thought it was pretty awful.

“Then the ‘stick to football’ people weighed in and I replied to one of them, just saying there was no massive influx, the UK takes far fewer refugees than other European countries, this is a cruel policy, and the language used in the debate reminds us of the debate in Germany in the 1930s.

“I think that is factually accurate.”

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The 62-year-old host added that he agreed he would not stop “occasionally” tweeting about two issues – climate change and refugees – when new social media guidance was introduced by director-general Tim Davie in October 2020.

He added: “I wasn’t prepared to back down on that, especially as I felt and still feel that what I tweeted was fair and true.

“I wasn’t abusive, I wasn’t saying she [Braverman] was a Nazi.

“I talked about the use of words like ‘invasion’ and ‘swarms’ and ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists’, which I think we should be very careful about because it has real-life consequences.”

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Lineker also revealed that after he had been taken off air by the BBC, he found it “hard to see how it got resolved unless they backed down”.

“And I think the key moment was when the other presenters and then the commentators made it clear they wouldn’t go on if I was taken off air,” he said.

Commenting on the broadcaster’s director-general, he said: “To be fair to Tim Davie, he admitted they had got it wrong and sorted it out.

“I love the BBC and I was very glad to be back on air and talking about football again.”

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