Mark Lawrenson claims the BBC is ‘top of the woke league’

Lawrenson claimed last year that he was sacked for being '65 and a white male'

Lawrenson worked with the BBC for the best part of 30 years before leaving at the end of the 2021-22 season.

Last year he told the Sunday Times: "The Beeb are probably the worst at giving you bad news. It was just, ‘We are going on the road next season with Focus. We don’t think it is really something for you.'"

In that column he suggested the reason behind his sacking was due to being "white and male" and the former Liverpool star doubled down on the claim when appearing on the  Ben Heath podcast.

He even sensationally claimed that the late Radio 2 producer Steve Wright was "pushed out" as well as the likes of Ken Bruce and Sue Barker in recent years.

Asked if the BBC had gone woke he said: "Gone woke? It is top of the woke league.

"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."

'They are frightened'

Continuing his argument, Lawrenson claimed that the corporation were scared to let anyone speak their mind and referred to the incident with Gary Lineker last year in which he was briefly taken off air after he compare the Government to the Nazis in regards to their recent immigration policy.

"They are frightened, they say to everyone you can’t do this and you can’t say that. Look, it is somebody’s opinion," he added.

"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.

"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."

Related links:

• Mark Lawrenson says he was sacked from BBC for being ’65 and a white male’
• Non-league club make history with record number of wins in nine days to guarantee play-off spot
• Couple quit teaching jobs to begin their own ‘anti-woke’ school