Ex-Presenter Slams BBC For Dealing with Of Exit From Query Of Sport – Deadline

Veteran BBC presenter Sue Barker has slammed the Company for the way in which it dealt with her departure from certainly one of its hottest recreation exhibits. 

The previous tennis participant turned presenter had been internet hosting Query of Sport – the world’s longest working TV sports activities quiz present – for twenty-four years till 2020, when the broadcaster determined to rebrand the present with a brand new host. 

Barker advised one other BBC present, BBC Breakfast, that her employer had needed her to say she was stepping down by selection, relatively than being changed. 

She mentioned: “They [BBC] needed to refresh the programme and that’s completely positive.

“So we knew it was going to occur and it was simply the way in which during which it occurred and the way in which it was dealt with, and the way in which I feel the BBC needed me to say that I used to be strolling away from it.

“And but, I’d by no means stroll away from a job I liked. I didn’t thoughts being changed. Completely positive. That occurs. But it surely was simply the way in which it was dealt with.

“I feel if we glance again on it we might have dealt with it higher. I feel the BBC might have dealt with it higher.”

In her current memoir, Barker additionally mentioned she refused to place her identify to any assertion that claimed she was stepping down by selection, and that the expertise had left her “barely broken.”

“Did they really anticipate me to sack myself?” she wrote.

Barker advised BBC Breakfast: “It’s simply such a disgrace as a result of I liked it.

“And I don’t look again on it badly simply due to a few dangerous days after which some detrimental publicity, which I feel affected fairly lots of people.”

Barker, the French Open champion of 1976, had additionally introduced the broadcaster’s Wimbledon protection for many years till she introduced her retirement from the job in July this 12 months.