Gary Lineker calls on ‘super wealthy’ to ‘contribute more to society’

Former Match Of The Day presenter Gary Lineker has called on the “super wealthy” to “contribute more to society” by paying more tax.

The 65-year-old, who hosts The Rest Is Football podcast, was among 120 UK-based millionaires to sign an open letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham in July saying they should pay more tax.

Speaking on the Begin Again With Davina McCall podcast, Lineker told the former Big Brother presenter: “I think if there comes a point in your life where you have wealth, I think you can perhaps contribute to society.

“Now, I know you can just do that anyway if you want to, I think there’s a way of just paying it, and we all do stuff with charities and things like that.

Gary Lineker said he did not believe billionaires would leave the UK if they were asked to pay more tax (Ben Whitley/PA)

PA Wire

“But I think it misses the point when they argue about the fact, ‘well, just do it anyway’, but I think if you can get it as a kind of law that the super wealthy contribute more to society, it would make sense.

“It wouldn’t really make any difference to them, how much do you actually need? Especially when you’re talking about obviously super wealthy, like the billionaires, and they say, ‘well, they’ll just leave the country’. Will they? Really? Over like 0.2% of their wealth?

“I mean, would they? Why? And you just think, ‘well, would you want those kind of people in the country?’.”

The former England striker said he had “always paid top level tax” for a “long, long time” and added that he was “happy to do so”.

Lineker continued: “If they want us to dip in, I think most of us would like to help in a way, so we’ll see if the Government does that.

“There’ll be a lot of lobbying against it, of course, from the super rich, because for some reason it’s, I don’t know, it’s like a my dick’s bigger than your dick kind of game for them, a lot of them, I’ve got a bigger boat than you, and I’ve got this and the other, I don’t quite get it.”

It comes after Lineker was revealed to have been paid between £325,000 and £329,999 by the BBC for the year to March 2026 in its latest Annual Report, placing him 15th in the list of the corporation’s highest earners for that period, having left the BBC in May last year.

He had a salary of between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999 in the previous annual report.

Gary Lineker will front ITV’s The Box when it launches on September 5 (Adam Davy/PA)

PA Archive

Lineker’s departure came after a row following an Instagram post he made about Zionism, which featured a depiction of a rat, historically an antisemitic insult.

The sports broadcaster apologised for the post, adding that he did not see the rat visual and that he did not think “anyone actually believes I would’ve posted that”.

Lineker will front ITV’s The Box game show when it airs on Saturday, September 5.