He managed to keep his cool while the hoax played out, but Gary Lineker now claims he understood exactly what the ‘porn noises’ were as they were aired across the country.
On Tuesday night, BBC One’s live coverage of Wolves vs. Liverpool was strangely interrupted by some intimate-sounding audio bursting on air at the start of their programme.
The groans began just as Gary was introducing the FA Cup third-round replay at Molineux, and they lasted for the next 15 minutes as he attempted to address pre-match concerns with Alan Shearer, Paul Ince, and Danny Murphy.
While he appeared red-faced and perplexed at the moment, he has now confessed that he was fully aware of what was going on.
After the game, the former player joked on Newsnight, ‘If you’d told me this morning I’d be on Newsnight talking about a porn scandal, I’d have been scared. Fortunately, it was only something that happened in the studio.’
He went on to say that it didn’t take long for him to figure out where the noises were coming from.
‘When it started I did recognise that sound, I think we’ve all been done with that when you open up a Whatsapp or something, or somebody has sent it to you as a trick on the train or when you’re busy in people’s company,’ he said.
‘It was quite difficult to cope with the pre-match build up and I thought maybe it had gone to one of the pundits’ phones, but then I thought no, it’s too loud. Then we obviously worked out it was a prank.
‘It was so loud I couldn’t hear anything from Danny Murphy or Paul Ince, or even when I spoke to Alan Shearer. We had like five minutes more to go, is it going to stop? Every time we went to a VT it stopped, so then I thought it was being done by somebody watching the TV and waiting until we come on.’
Gary shared a snapshot of a mobile phone that had been hidden in the studio after they discovered the source of the wicked prank.
‘Well, we found this taped to the back of the set. As sabotage goes it was quite amusing,’ he wrote.
Gary was the consummate professional during the show, trying not to giggle while presenting.
‘I don’t know who is making that noise but Alan Shearer is on the commentary gantry,’ he said.
‘It’s toasty in this studio, it is a bit noisy as well.’
The BBC later issued an official apology, with a short statement reading: ‘We apologise to any viewers offended during the live coverage of the football this evening. We are investigating how this happened.’
Comedian and prankster Daniel Jarvis has also admitted he was behind the stunt, sharing a video of it being carried out.
Jarvo, the prankster, was banned from sporting events for two years in October 2022 after running onto the pitch during a Test match between England and India at the Oval and barging into Jonny Bairstow.