New MOTD presenting line-up talk succeeding Gary Lineker: “It helps that we’re all really different from Gary”

For the BBC, the challenge was to find a new host for the world’s longest running football show, Match of the Day, following the early departure of Gary Lineker from the hot seat. In the end, they elected three successors who will share the presenter’s chair on a rotational basis when the show returns this week. The trio were brought together for Radio Times, for their first and only interview ahead of the new Premier League season.

So, how did they get the job? “I had a lunch where it was put to me as a possibility: ‘Would you like to be in the mix if this were to become available?’” says Kelly Cates, who has been presenting live Premier League coverage on Sky Sports as well as her 5 Live Sport radio show.

“Did you have a lunch? I didn’t have a lunch!” quips Mark Chapman, host of Match of the Day 2 and Radio 5 Live’s sports coverage on Saturday afternoons. “I don’t think it was even a coffee, it was a text!” adds Gabby Logan, a 20-year stalwart of BBC Sport coverage, who recently covered the Lionesses’ run to Women’s Euro 2025 glory.

“The irony is that we’re not actually going to see each other,” says Cates who, unlike Logan and Chapman, has never previously presented Match of the Day. Logan explains, “Our schedules are not going to be easy. If you’re trying to work it out and think there’s some rhythm to it, there’s no rhythm to it whatsoever. It’s largely going to be predicated on us saying, ‘I can’t do this Saturday or this Sunday because I’m doing this sport.’”

“That’s not our headache!” adds Cates. “You get to go and do other tournaments. I’m staying at Sky, so this means we can all keep everything else we have on the go.”

Before the news was announced in January, Cates – who even kept her new job a secret from her father, former Liverpool player and manager Sir Kenny Dalglish – Logan and Chapman enjoyed a clandestine meal together.

“We thought, ‘Should we do that? Does it just draw attention to ourselves?’ I got a text from a friend of my sister’s saying, ‘Somebody has seen you and Gabby Logan out together!’ Chappers was there, just with his hoodie up and bobble hat.” After that, the new hosts set up a WhatsApp group. “I called it The Match of the Day Three,” says Logan, “which we quickly realised sounded like some kind of vigilante group, or like we’ve been wrongly incarcerated for something.”

There is one certainty about a major succession: everyone has an opinion. Cates hopes comparisons with their predecessor Lineker will be muted. “It helps that we’re all really different from Gary, in that he goes in with a profile of his own as an England legend. It’s a very different career path. An ex-player taking over would be a more direct comparison.” Meanwhile, Chapman, who will present the first show on Saturday, doesn’t see the new gig as an ascension at all. “Why is it the top job?” he asks in deadpan style. “I’m intrigued, really, because I’ve never viewed Saturdays and Sundays as any different.”

Logan adds, “In many weeks, Match of the Day 2 has been a stronger line-up. Match of the Day is Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays [for Champions League highlights]. It’s not Match of the Day 1, Match of the Day 2, it’s just Match of the Day. That will be the most noticeable change, apart from not having Gary involved.” She isn’t speaking figuratively – Match of the Day 2 is no more. Sunday’s show has been renamed, to be simply Match of the Day. The midweek European highlights show will be named Match of the Day: Champions League.

Some of the other changes to the show may not go down particularly well with BBC chairman Samir Shah, who stated in The Sunday Times that the long-running format “should not be built around highlights. It should be built around analysis.” “I don’t think he has a say in how it’s made,” says Cates.

“I think he’s just giving an opinion as a football fan – which is fine, that’s what you want people to do. You want people to care about Match of the Day and how it’s made. I think what people like about the show is the fact that it’s about the football – it’s about the highlights. That’s the most important thing.”

“The fact he likes the analysis is great,” Logan agrees. “If he wants more of it, that means he’s enjoying it.”

Lineker’s departure, after 25 years presenting Match of the Day, was hastened after he shared an antisemitic social media post, for which he later apologised, calling it a “a genuine mistake and oversight”. The presenter had a long-running history of tension with the BBC over his social media use, so will his successors act in line – online – in a manner befitting the MotD institution they will lead? “I don’t think I’ve ever really weighed in that much on anything that isn’t either about football or something quite silly,” says Cates. “That’s not how I’ve ever used social media.”

Ever the professional, Logan explains, “I’ve been conducting myself on social media while working at the BBC for nearly two decades, so it doesn’t change anything. The broadcaster is probably under the most scrutiny of any in the country because of the way it’s funded and because it’s accountable to the public. That’s how it should be. We strive to have the highest standards. Hopefully, we’ll just get on with our jobs.”

Of course, social media is a two-way street, with high-profile broadcasters exposed to the world and their keyboards. “If people are just slinging mindless and ill-thought-out abuse, that’s not helping anybody,” says Logan. “When I first went online at the 2010 World Cup, I was opening Pandora’s Box and reading awful things about myself, which is a horrible feeling at first. You have to learn how to deal with it and that takes time.

“I’m glad I didn’t start my career in the middle of the landscape we have now. I’m glad I had a few years where people actually had to get a pen out – or a quill – and write a letter and post it to the BBC. Generally, at Sky, they used to send nice things in the post, like chocolates.”

Cates admits she has been surprised by the scale of interest. “I didn’t think there would be as much focus as there has been. I thought, probably very naively, that Gary would take it all as the outgoing person. I didn’t realise people would be as interested as they are. Neighbours, friends, kids’ parents, people who wouldn’t normally have been interested in anything I did – suddenly they are.”

Has Lineker, who has reportedly signed up to host a new ITV game show called The Box later this year, been in touch since the succession was made public? Chapman reveals that he had contact with Lineker recently: “I saw him not long ago and he said that he had been asked in an interview whether he’d given us tips. And he said, ‘Why? What? What on earth would I be doing phoning you three up to offer you tips? Why would I be deemed to be that arrogant to do that?’

“Experience-wise, we’ve all been doing it for a long time…” he adds. “I feel a bit sorry for Gary being asked that question because he’s on a bit of a hiding to nothing. When I started doing stuff for Sky, the first person I spoke to was Kelly, to get a lay of the land, not how to do the job.” Cates asks: “Was any of it helpful?” She gets a blunt response from Chapman: “Not really,” followed by a burst of laughter.

Lineker topped the BBC earners list for eight years in a row prior to his exit. When asked whether any of the trio would follow in his footsteps up the ladder, Logan replies with a smile: “It’ll come out next July – you’ll find out then.”

And it’s Logan who concludes on behalf of them all, “I’m sure if Gary had something very practical he wanted to pass on, we’d all receive it gratefully. But as Mark says, he doesn’t feel he needs to. I know where the biscuits are kept. The focus is only on us because Gary’s leaving, and he’s such a huge name. We’re nowhere near the most important people on the show. The most important thing is the football, then it’s the pundits and what they think about it, and we’re there to bring it all together. What people will notice is that there isn’t much change.”

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