Why sorry is not enough for Gary Lineker to undo the damage of that rat post, writes IAN HERBERT

Gary Lineker is not the first high profile individual to plead that he didn’t spot an image he had inadvertently just shared on Instagram. When Ryan Reynolds ‘liked’ a post in which striker Wrexham striker Paul Mullin expressed distaste for the Conservative government – whom the club were lobbying for cash grants at the time – he claimed that he hadn’t scrolled far enough to spot the offending comment.

Despite his obvious contrition on Monday, it’s harder for Lineker to defend his sharing of a ‘Palestine Lobby’ post about Zionism, featuring an emoji of a rat. The trope has been used by cartoonists to depict many groups, though most despicably by Nazi propagandists in their portrayal of Jews in the 1930s. The vermin was prominent on the post and including a moving tail.

The grief Lineker feels about his 30-year BBC career ending this way was written across his face as he broadcast the much-anticipated news that he is leaving. It had been his fervent wish, all along, to extend his contract.

In less divisive and angry times 15 years ago, when political statements did not bring the forces of holy hell raining down, Lineker appeared in a hard-hitting Kick It Out video exhorting fans not to use an antisemitic Y-word. But no amount of credit can help when a motif like last week’s has been shared. What possessed him to share it?

The tragedy is that he is leaving in this way. A storm of controversy, paparazzi swarming around him as he walks his dog and, doubtless, a last mot juste or two as he bows out after Sunday’s Match of the Day.

It should not have ended so, because Lineker has been an outstanding presenter, who has kept Match of the Day’s entertainment value and relevance alive. It is because of him that the programme continues to attract audiences of 4million – 6.1 per cent of the British population – every Saturday night.

Gary Lineker will depart the BBC after sharing a post about Zionism that featured a rat

Lineker shared a now-deleted reel on Instagram which originated with pro-Palestine group Palestine Lobby

Among the Nazis’ depictions of Jewish people as rats was this poster produced by Adolf Hitler’s regime during their 1940s occupation of Denmark

It is abundantly clear that new opportunities will open up, should he choose to take any. His podcast interview last week with Duncan Ferguson, about the former Everton striker’s new autobiography, demonstrated his usual blend of authenticity and presentational flair.

There was an equally easy rapport, player to player, with Wayne Rooney in the BBCs excellent live FA Cup Final broadcast on Saturday. Football pedigree matters. Lineker wears his lightly.

On Sunday, a video message from him, one of many provided by ex-Everton players, was broadcast at the farewell ceremony at Goodison. It was received to huge cheers, despite Lineker being at the club for only one season. Graeme Sharp, who gave the club 11 years as a player, says Lineker was the best goalscorer he ever worked with there. Beyond the controversies of what he chooses to tap into his phone, he has popularity.

The only broadcaster I know whose presence makes for such a compelling watch as Lineker is Roger Bennett, main host of the US-based Men in Blazers media network, with whom every top Premier League manager and player wants to talk these days.

Bennett, a Jewish, Liverpool-born British American, did not win a World Cup Golden Boot. He approaches his interviews from a position of awe. He is hugely likeable, abundantly positive and does not seem to see the need to make any progressive liberal viewpoints known.

Lineker said in the Instagram post signalling his departure that he regretted the choice of the material he shared. ‘I should have been more diligent. I know it.’ But many members of the Jewish community feel that sending on that image was an act of prejudice. And that means sorry isn’t enough.