Gary Lineker is a weak coward who cannot bear to apologise

Firstly I would just like to keep this all in an appropriate context, Gary Lineker's pathetic attempts at mocking Arsene Wenger are not a massive deal, but they are certainly something that should not be ignored and for this reason I just want to ramble on briefly about the aftermath of Lineker's foolish outburst.

There was no doubt Lineker's actions were a tasteless and poorly executed joke at best, at worst they were a rather unpleasant piece of small minded bullying tinged with a bit of xenophobia, you can make up your own minds.  There is also no doubt that no other manager has been targeted like that in the past on a serious sports program, it would be a different thing entirely on a satirical show or a comedy program.  The point is that people like Lineker have to be seen to be vaguely impartial and objective, the BBC is funded by us, the tax payer, and has responsibilities that come with being a public sector broadcaster.

The Mail quite rightly followed this story and it was interesting that Lineker was largely condemned by most fans, whether Arsenal fans or not.  John Cross was quite right with his excellent Mirror piece, correctly pointing out that Lineker's joke has back fired and that it bordered on xenophobia.  In fact the worst thing about the BBC's coverage was largely ignored by the media, Arsene Wenger took a lot of racist abuse from Stoke fans last weekend being called a 'french ****' and the BBC chose to portray the Stoke fans as having a great sense of humour, hardly glowing objective coverage on their part.

Gary Lineker has felt the need to come out to speak on the matter and has again failed to cover himself in glory.  He has failed to apologise, merely stating that he would never intend to offend Arsene Wenger, a bit of a Shawcross defence really, intent doesn't really matter, it's the offensive end product that counts in my opinion.  Gary would have done much better to come out and say sorry, by not apologising he just makes himself look like a small cowardly weasel.  The BBC have handled this whole affair very very badly, a quick apology would have killed the whole thing, instead they have defended the indefensible and covered themselves in shame.

Apparently it is just a few Arsenal fans being angry with Gary because he played for Tottenham!  Frankly I don't care who you played for Gary, I just think your behaviour was utterly pathetic and not fitting for a BBC sports presenter.  Mind you compared to Robbie Savage's mere presence, it wasn't that offensive in the grand scheme of things, how the BBC's standards are slipping!  Apparently this is all now 'boring' to Gary, well maybe he should have considered this before his tasteless outburst?  Why not just own up to your mistake and apologise?  Only a proper man would do this though.