Gary Lineker was forced to think on his feet during his final after an unexpected mishap occurred during his last show for the BBC. The ex- striker had always planned to step down from the highlights show on Sunday, but his exit from the corporation was due to a social media dispute.

's exit from the BBC comes after a controversy where he shared a . The deleted post included an image of a rat, which historically is an antisemitic insult. He offered an unreserved apology over the post, but it was confirmed he would depart his presenting role at the BBC earlier than planned, nonetheless. The 64-year-old fought back tears during Sunday's programme and reflected on his final Match of the Day, which he hosted since 1999. But his final show could've gone disastrously wrong after Lineker revealed that he lost his script at the 11th hour.

"I was a bit emotional last night, but I'm fine, I'm good and thank you both for your very kind words," he said on The Rest is Football podcast (via ) with and Micah Richards, who were the pundits during his final show. "I must say when they played the montage, obviously I knew something was coming but I didn't know what it was at all and I was struggling to keep myself, especially when I saw my boys.

"Thankfully that wasn't the last clip because I had gone at that point and I needed time to get myself together and try to get through the end of the show.

"It's strange isn't it? I've presented it for 25, 26 years and I always finish with the table and a closing line, which again I did last night. But for the first time ever because of everything that was going on, I completely lost what we call the copy, which is essentially the written form of what I read out over the tables.

"That is written by the subs, it needs to be accurate obviously for all the things, you can't make any mistakes and for the first time in 26 years I couldn't find it. And it wasn't there, so I just busk.

"There were a couple of tears, I was fighting it back a bit with my closing lines, but yeah, and big thank you actually to Richard Hughes, he is the (Match of the Day) editor. Rich is brilliant, he's the best in the business and getting that montage together was a brilliant thing."

Lineker had intended to continue at the BBC and present live coverage of the FA Cup and the 2026 World Cup. However, he conceded it was "best for all concerned" he left early after the recent antisemitism row.