Gary Lineker is getting a lot of criticism for his comments about the R&A taking the Open championship away from free-to-air TV stations like the BBC and moving to Sky. From 2017, the BBC will lose their TV rights to the Open, just years after losing their exclusive coverage to the US Masters.
Lineker was quick to fire angry comments directed at the R&A, describing them as "pompous...superior beings". However, the man that preceded Lineker as the presenter of BBC's golf thinks that Lineker has gone too far.
ITV's Steve Rider presented the BBC's golf coverage until 2005 when he left the station and was replaced by Lineker. Lineker was particularly vocal over the R&A's decision to award Sky the championship, and let his feelings known to the Golf Paper.
I think the R&A have always been very difficult to deal with. They live in a world where it seems they feel they are superior beings.
They are old school. They are born from an era which gives them entitlement which the rest of us aren’t. I felt that pomposity when I got the job. Now they have taken the Open away from the BBC for a few pence extra. For me that is going to be a very damaging decision for golf. It’s a shame because the sport is struggling as it is. It’s badly run.
Rider has hit back at Lineker's comments, saying that he was unsuited to the golf presenting job, before defending the R&A against the accusations levelled by Lineker:
I hold Gary Lineker in the highest regard as a football presenter. But his reflections on his experiences as a golf presenter need a huge reality check. For four years, the R&A and most other observers knew that Gary was the wrong man in the wrong job. Hazel Irvine has just delivered once again at the Open presentation skills of the highest quality.
Gary was honest enough to step aside from the golf, but his attack on the R&A was sour and misguided in the extreme. Had he taken the time to involve himself in other areas of the BBC golf output, he would surely have a different opinion of the R&A. They are not ‘pompous superior beings’ – I would take them over Fifa and the Premier League any day.
