Gary Lineker is the latest high-profile name to get the documentary treatment — with a series charting his life launching on Amazon Prime next year, The Athletic can reveal.
The four-part docuseries, which does not yet have a working title, will tell the story of his life.
It will show his early life, growing up the son of a greengrocer in Leicester and his time as a professional footballer — he is fourth in England’s all-time record goalscoring list and won the Golden Boot at the 1986 World Cup.
During his playing career, Lineker — who started out at Leicester City before playing for Everton, Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur and Japan’s Nagoya Grampus — famously never received a yellow or red card.
It will then look at his post-football career, selling Walkers crisps and his move into media work, where he fronted the BBC’s Match of the Day highlights show for 26 years and became the corporation’s highest paid employee before stepping down last summer.
The docuseries will also examine Lineker’s departure from the BBC.
That came after Lineker apologised for sharing an Instagram post — which he deleted — captioned ‘Zionism explained in two minutes’ from the group Palestine Lobby. The post also showed a rat emoji. Rats have long been used in antisemitic imagery and propaganda, including in Nazi Germany.
In a statement addressing that, Lineker said on Instagram: “I very much regret these references. I would never knowingly share anything antisemitic. It goes against everything I believe in.”
Lineker starred for England during the 1986 World Cup (Ben Radford/Allsport/Getty Images)
Two years earlier, Lineker — who has never shied away from expressing his views on social media — was told to step back from presenting Match of the Day following an impartiality row after he criticised the government’s asylum policy.
After leaving the BBC, Lineker’s podcast empire called ‘Goalhanger’ — which features the likes of ‘The Rest is Politics’ and ‘the Rest is History’ — has gone from strength to strength. At the World Cup, the company’s ‘The Rest is Football’ show was streamed on Netflix in a lucrative deal, with the partnership continuing for the start of the new Premier League season.
The documentary about Lineker is being produced by Orchard Studios, who were founded in 2024. It will feature interviews from Lineker himself, as well as family members, fellow footballers, friends and critics.
In the press release for the series, Dan Grabiner, chief executive officer for Orchard Studios, said: “This series goes beyond the headlines to reveal the many sides of one of Britain’s most recognisable and divisive figures, with candid insight from Gary himself and those closest to both his triumphs and controversies.”
The Lineker documentary is part of a new trend of series on streaming platforms, exploring the lives of famous sportspeople, sports teams and musicians.
This month, a Jose Mourinho series launched on Netflix, while a ‘Beautiful Obsession’, showing Pep Guardiola’s final two seasons at Manchester City, was released on Amazon Prime on Wednesday.
