[matthieu1221]

It's also an apple to pears comparison to be comparing Gary Lineker to the likes of Neil Oliver and Alan Sugar, in my view. The nature of their roles are very different.

Gary Lineker is a prominent BBC face, presenting MOTD and live football coverage on the BBC. He is representing the brand.

This is not the case for Neil Oliver and Alan Sugar - they are appearing on documentary/entertainment programming. Nobody hears those two names and immediately thinks 'BBC'. And most people watching 'Coast' this afternoon probably don't even have a clue that Neil now works on GBN.

That being said, I think that Gary should be able to express his views on social media as he presents sports coverage, not news. However, if the BBC are paying him £1.3m per year, then I don't think it would be unreasonable for them to impose restrictions on his social media usage if they wished to do so, providing it was explicitly stated in his contract.

Drawing a line on who is representing the BBC as a brand and who merely presents programs on them will likely get them into more trouble. Why they don't just stick to the news/everything else line which is already hinted in their social media use guidelines is beyond me.