Gary Lineker found himself on BBC Newsnight on Tuesday night trying to explain why sex noises were broadcast to the nation during coverage of a FA match on Match Of The Day.
Gary was presenting a third-round replay in the studio – alongside pundits Paul Ince and Danny Murphy – from the match between Wolves and Liverpool when he was rudely interrupted by some piercing moans.
Recalling the awkward moment hours later, Gary told Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark: “If you’d told me this morning that tonight I’d be on Newsnight talking about a porn scandal, I would have been terrified.
“Thankfully, it was just something that happened in the studio.”
Gary said he did “recognise” the sound when it first erupted in the studio, but quickly added: “I think we’ve all been done with that, where you open up a WhatsApp, it’s a trick on a train, busy in people’s company.
“It was quite difficult to cope with during the pre-match build-up, so then I thought maybe it had gone to one of the pundits’ phones, and then I thought, ‘no it’s too loud,’ then obviously worked out it was a prank.”
He said the sounds even concealed what his colleagues were trying to say about the match: “I could hardly hear what they said when the thing was going off.”
It wasn’t long before the team realised the noises only started up when the live coverage went to the studio – so Lineker thought it was done by someone “watching the TV”.
Acknowledging how the BBC had apologised for the incident, which is now under investigation, Gary laughed: “We’ve certainly got nothing to [be sorry] for.”
Kirsty also cheekily asked: “It is the most unusual special effect you’ve ever had to deal with it?”
“Unquestionably so,” the former footballer replied.
Gary also pointed out that in a sense, it “added to the whole game actually, I don’t think anyone cared, the match wasn’t that special”.
Gary joked: “We had a screamer of a goal, which was kind of the tone of the whole show, I suppose.”
While he did note that it was a security issue, he concluded: “As pranks go, it was a good one. Credit to them, it was funny I thought.”
When the match started, Gary also tweeted out a picture of the guilty device which was taped to the back of the set.