At the weekend the Daily Star ran a front page splash, claiming Gary Lineker had branded the England football team "losers". The story twisted a joke Lineker made to Reader's Digest about the tendency among England football fans to all get our hopes up only to be dashed in the big tournaments. The Star even agreed Lineker hadn't made the comment but told him they'd written it purely for the sake of the headline.
Today the Star published an apology of sorts:
As predicted on this blog it was indeed harder to find than a clip of Lineker scoring from outside from area (which was actually quite easy to find). It also failed to include any of the normal hallmarks of an apology, such as an actual apology, stating merely:
"Gary Lineker has asked us to point out that his remarks about England...were meant as a lighthearted jocular reference to how overexcited we get at our prospects before a big tournament..."
Lineker won't be the only person who noticed it is also considerably smaller than the original front page splash, published as it was about 100 miles off the coast of Aberdeen on the Daily Star's page 2 weather map:
See also:
Lineker puts the boot in to Daily Star
"A cascade of shit": Daily Star branded 'work of fiction' by own reporter
The Daily Star's Barrymore Barton story may disappoint
BBC breaks latest England team shock
Well Rio, if you will tweet such things
Sorry but the existence of the Daily Star points at a failure of the British education system!
Posted by: simon bayley | May 21, 2012 at 21:56