Ian Holloway causes fans to change their minds on Gary Lineker after astonishing claim
Gary Lineker’s Leicester City feud with Ian Holloway has resurfaced after the Swindon Town boss released a new book.
Leicester have seen their fair share of England’s top three divisions in the last 22 seasons, with a one-year stay in League One followed by their march up the tiers to culminate in the 2015–16 Premier League title.
The Foxes’ lowest ebb came in 2008 when they were relegated to the third tier for the first time in their history under the tutelage of Holloway, but they bounced straight back in Nigel Pearson’s first spell.
Leicester’s current manager Ruud van Nistelrooy appears destined for the sack after his ill-equipped side were relegated back to the Championship with several games to spare, and record of just three wins.
Holloway’s record of nine wins in his 31 Championship matches couldn’t prevent Leicester’s relegation by a point back in May 2008, and the 62-year-old detailed his turbulent tenure in his new memoir.
Gary Lineker slammed in ‘disrespectful’ Holloway anecdote
Lineker is one of Leicester’s favourite sons after his progress through the academy to become a first-team and international regular between 1978 and 1985, before his big-money move to Everton.
The 64-year-old has remained a spokesperson for his boyhood club and often sparks debate on affairs at Leicester in his role as a BBC presenter and pundit, as well as discussing wider Premier League news.
However, Holloway took aim at Lineker in his recently-released memoir, Ian Holloway: The (mostly) Football World According to Ollie, the ex-Foxes boss took two opportunities to voice his opinion on the former striker.
Holloway said: “Gary’s not a nice man in my experience and maybe it was because of my time at Leicester – all I know is he was unpleasant to me and in my view, dismissive and disrespectful.
‘While I was at Blackpool, I was invited on Match of the Day but it was obvious Lineker didn’t want me there. He didn’t speak to me once and didn’t even say hello.”
Holloway also took aim at the Match of the Day presenter in a recent Swindon press conference on the subject of VAR, saying: “Referees get one split-second to make a decision – only one look at it.
“If referees had access to all the camera angles that Lineker and his friends have in a studio, they might get more decisions right.
“Nobody has any faith in referees because everyone has watched Match of the Day, and Lineker and his pundits would slaughter every ref every Saturday night.”
Holloway comments flip fans’ opinions on Lineker
As one of Leicester’s favourite sons, few Foxes fans think ill of Lineker, but those opinions have shifted somewhat off the back of Holloway’s comments and his own controversial Premier League opinions.
Lineker will leave Match of the Day at the end of the season after over 25 years at the helm of the BBC’s flagship football programme, and several fans will be happy to see him go after Holloway’s revelations.
Some supporters were scathing, and one said in the Daily Mail that; “he is a great example of someone who becomes too big for their boots and he doesn’t even know it because he keeps tripping over his ego.”
A Daily Express commentor sparked a debate by saying: “Holloway was the only manager in Leicester’s history to relegate us to the third tier, but maybe it was the kick-start to us winning the PL a few years later?”
Another Mail commentor said: “I grew up watching him play football. Always thought he was a humble, non-offensive person, but what a arrogant, entitled, ridiculous bloke he has become in recent years.”
Lineker has more moral fibre in his big toe than Holloway
— CC (@4done6togo) May 13, 2025
Other Express readers were less fond, as one said: “Lineker’s legacy as a footballer, unquestionable. Lineker’s character, not so”, while a Manchester City fan added: “Well said Ian Holloway. Always a very honest and likable bloke.”
Some fans didn’t read into the situation as much, and a less-than-impressed Leicester supporter concluded: “So Lineker isn’t exposed as [being] anything, just a manager doesn’t like him.”