Gary Lineker criticises Twitter trolls for match abuse

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Gary Lineker

Gary Lineker has hit out at Twitter trolls who have been replying to his posts with abuse.

They're referencing an accident that the Match of the Day presenter had during England's opening match of the 1990 World Cup against Ireland.

The number of people sending tweets to Lineker about what happened has taken off in recent weeks and Gary is increasingly unimpressed.

"It was relatively funny at the start," he said.

"It's now boring everybody with any degree of sense in their heads whatsoever, people are getting tired of it. It's just kids being silly."

He added: "Just on Twitter over the last few weeks whenever I tweet the reply is... Well, I won't say as it's a not pleasant expletive, but you can get the gist."

Explaining what happened during the match, he said: "I wasn't very well basically and I made a tackle which was unusual for me... the bowels relaxed and I was ill.

"If you Google me I think that's the thing that comes up first, 'Lineker pooed on the pitch' or whatever it is."

The former England striker has now started taking action against anyone who posts the comment.

"It's become a bit relentless but I'm now blocking everyone that does it. I think it's gradually diminishing.

"It's quite time consuming blocking everyone, it's not a very quick process but I have done a lot".

Lineker says he's not personally offended by anyone who tweets about his on-field mishap, he's more concerned about his other followers.

"It really doesn't bother me at all, not in the slightest but I have a lot of mothers, a lot of children, a lot of respectful people that follow me.

"Do I want them to read them at the bottom of a tweet? Not really."

Match of the Day at 50 is on BBC One, on Friday 22 August at 10.35pm.

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