Lads, is being tanned a race? Well apparently so as Gary Lineker has just revealed that he suffered ‘racist abuse’ as a schoolboy and footballer due to his ‘darkish’ skin.

Gary, who is white, says he was called racial slurs by both school pupils and prominent figures in the sports industry during his time at Everton, Barcelona and Leicester City, with both his youth and playing days plagued by racist abuse.

Lineker told The High Performance Podcast that fellow school pupils had taunted him over the colour of his skin:

“Without being good at sport, life would have been very different for me.

Because I was… I think I would have been bullied at school. I was kind of marginally [treated] that way anyway because I was this tiny geeky kid, with darkish skin and I had pretty much racist abuse… although I’m not… I’m as English as they come. All the time, all the time.”

He claimed to have suffered racist abuse in football, though he refused to name those he alleges used slurs against him:

“Even in professional football I had that a couple of times, I wouldn’t ever name any names. So I got that kind of nonsense, which was a bit weird. Whether that was part of something that made me, I don’t know, but other people might not be able to handle that.”

Naturally Gary is being rinsed all over social media for his comments, even though it seems he’s basically saying how stupid it was that he was ‘racially abused’ because he’s white. I mean he grew up in Leicester in the 60s and 70s – it wouldn’t surprise me if he got racist insults hurled at him for being tanned and having dark features. After all, racists are dumb!

Gary’s also catching some grief for saying “I’m as English as they come”, suggesting that he equates whiteness with being English. So yeah, he’s catching it from both ends at the moment which I guess is always going to happen when you’re a 60-year-old white guy recounting the racial abuse you experienced as a child.

Not quite a Rachel Dolezal situation in the end, but a reminder that the internet won’t ever let you off the hook, even if what you’re saying is well-intentioned and holds some merit.