The Match of the Day frontman, who enraged millions with his anti-Brexit rants on social media, said he had decided to retreat from the issue. And in an interview with FT Magazine, he said: “Brexit will be put on hold for a little while because there are more important fish to fry at the moment.”

I just want it to work now and do the best that we can with the situation that we’ve been dealt

Gary Lineker

He continued: “I’ve decided to end talking about it now. Even if it does go pear-shaped, I won’t stand up and say, ‘I told you so.’

“I just want it to work now and do the best that we can with the situation that we’ve been dealt.”

The former England striker stirred a hornet’s nest a few months after the Brexit vote when he criticised Britain over its treatment of child refugees arriving in the UK from Calais.

He tweeted: “The treatment by some towards these young refugees is hideously racist and utterly heartless. What’s happening to our country?”

Viewers thought he had gone too far and many joined calls for him to be sacked by the BBC.

The backing of then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn did little to win over critics who felt his views were based on out-of-touch snobbery.

Lineker said some of the personal attacks against him were overdone and the abuse tended to be online.

He said: “People are a bit braver when they’re hidden behind a keyboard.”

Lineker, the son of a Leicester market trader, is also an ardent defender of the BBC and said he was relieved the attacks on the corporation from both the left and right had largely stopped.

The 59-year-old raised eyebrows when he suggested the licence fee should be voluntary but has since rowed back and said his comments were misconstrued.

He told FT Magazine: “What I said is, it’d be so much easier if we weren’t a licence.

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“Because if you work for the BBC, and I’m sure people right across all departments in the BBC will know this — particularly if you’re high profile — you get constantly thrown at you: ‘We pay your wages’.

“My comments were always basically along the lines of: ‘I just wish it was a subscription channel and I wouldn’t get this any more.’ Which was kind of a selfish perspective and it came across wrongly?

“I was wrong about that. Having looked at it and studied it a little bit, I thought, I need to make myself clear on this because I don’t really see a viable alternative.

“The BBC is great value for money.”

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