Axed Match of the Day pundit Mark Lawrenson says the BBC is ‘top of the WOKE LEAGUE’ and got rid of him because ‘I was 65 and white’

Mark Lawrenson has branded the BBC as being ‘top of the woke league’ after again claiming he was dropped as a Match of the Day pundit due to being ’65 and white’.

The former Liverpool spent three decades with the corporation, including 25 years with Football Focus, but left at the end of the 2021-22 football season.

Lawrenson claimed in 2022 that he was informed the show would be going ‘on the road’ and that bosses told him ‘we don’t think it is really something for you’.

The move led to Lawrenson’s typical one-year contract not being renewed, with the pundit then opting to retire.

Lawrenson, speaking on the Ben Heath podcast, repeated his claim his departure was due to him being ’65 and white’.

The now 66-year-old claimed the late BBC Radio 2 presenter Steve Wright was ‘pushed out’, as well as departures of Ken Bruce and Sue Barker from the corporation in recent years. 

When asked whether the BBC had ‘gone woke’, Lawrenson was quick to agree with Heath.

‘Gone woke, it is top of the woke league,’ Lawrenson replied.

‘They are frightened to death, absolutely and totally frightened to death.

‘You have seen the stuff with Gary Lineker and obviously people at the head of the BBC, I think day by day, I think the integrity of the corporation gets chipped off.

‘It used to be absolutely fantastic but they are woke, plus 100 per cent.’

The former Match of the Day and Football Focus pundit highlighted Lineker’s public dispute with the BBC last year as an example.

Lineker was taken off air over a tweet that appeared to compare the government to Nazis over their immigration policy.

A swathe of fellow presenters and commentators refused to step into his shoes, forcing the BBC to air the traditional football round-up without any commentary.

Lineker later returned as host, with the BBC eventually agreeing new rules with its flagship presenters allowing them to ‘express views on issues and policies’ following a review.

Lawrenson claimed that the BBC became ‘frightened’ about contributors expressing their opinions during his final years at the corporation.

‘They are frightened, they say to everyone you can’t do this and you can’t say that. Look, it is somebody’s opinion,’ Lawrenson said.

‘The thing with Gary [Lineker] is that he works for himself, so he is entitled to his own opinion. Rightly or wrongly he has got an opinion about everything, even in the inside of a ping pong ball.

‘You used to go on the programme and have the headset in your ears, they would be talking to you from the gallery and someone would ask a question, you’d want to jump in and they would say “don’t say anything”.

‘You go “what really”, that got to me a bit at the end.

‘Hansen was the best, finished after the World Cup in Brazil and said “I’m done”

‘I had a great run, but it has just changed. The world has changed hasn’t it, completely. Some of the things you could just say, now it is absolutely impossible.’

Earlier this month, BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew also admitted frustration at their push for gender neutral language.

Agnew, speaking to the Sunday Times, admitted his disappointment at the changing vocabulary around the sport following the introduction of gender neutral terminology.

This includes the use of ‘batter’ rather than batsman, as well as referring to the ‘men’s and women’s Ashes’.

The biennial Test series between the teams was termed ‘the Ashes’ after a mock newspaper obituary of the England team, after Australia won on English soil for the first time.

A Women’s Ashes has been contested since 1998.

‘That doesn’t mean to say that the Ashes has to be the “men’s Ashes”,’ Agnew said.

“People will call me an old fart, I suppose, it’s an event. It happened. 

‘It’s not the “Men’s Battle of Hastings”, is it?’