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Surely part of the problem relating to sports presenters and impartiality comes from how there seems to be a growing crossover between BBC news and sports coverage - I'm thinking of the likes of Ros Atkins appearing before the World Cup opening game, Dan Roan appearing on the World Cup draw coverage or BBC Rome correspondent Mark Lowen appearing on the Euro 2020 preview show.

Obviously this has gone the other way as well for much longer with people like Jonathan Agnew or John Murray appearing on (mostly the radio) news as Cricket/football correspondent, TV sports news bulletins being clearly branded as BBC Sport and so on.
And that's not even mentioning Dan Walker who walked the line between the two.

With sport being so politicised generally, as seen with the bans on Russian players, the human rights criticism of Qatar and the wrangling over sportspeople taking the knee it would seem reasonable to have the same level of impartiality for TV sports presenters as news presenters. Obviously this past weekend has shown the BBC don't have any idea how to implement it.

Until the BBC either employs people like GL (although doubtful he or any of the others in his position would ever want to be employed as this would result in restrictions on their other business activities) or the government changes IR-35 legislation, there is legally nothing that can be implemented. 

The second the BBC pushes through rules which apply to freelancers during times where they are not actually on air (e.g. their personal social media) and freelancers accept those rules, HMRC will, rightly under current legislation, consider all of them inside IR-35 which in turn means they have to pay PAYE tax, NI contributions and the BBC will also have to pay employer NICs.

Make matters worse, those freelancers would then also be entitled, should they wish, to the BBC's employee benefits.

This would result in higher expenses for the BBC at a time where it's strapped for cash and it would likely also result in many of the current faces disappearing from the BBC as they would otherwise have to give up they other gigs.

So in reality, the only option is for the BBC to make clear that impartiality does not imply outside of being on air, possibly with the exception of those working in news and current affairs.

Personally, I just don't get what the problem is. Public broadcasters in other countries manage just fine. As long as a presenter leaves their personal opinions at the door and is completely impartial whilst on air there should not be a problem. It's not uncommon in other European countries for presenters' voting intention to be known but on air they are impartial and professional.