As an English soccer star, Gary Lineker was renowned for never having been penalised with a yellow or red card in his 16-year career. As a politically opinionated sports broadcaster for the BBC, Lineker has tangled regularly with the officials, and his suspension over a Twitter post on immigration last week escalated into a crisis that now engulfs the British Broadcasting Corp.

Lineker’s standoff with the BBC has set off a noisy debate over free expression, government influence and the role of a revered, if beleaguered, public broadcaster in an era of polarised politics and freewheeling social media. It came after a walkout by Lineker’s soccer colleagues forced the BBC to radically curtail its coverage of a national obsession, reducing the chatty flagship show he usually anchors, Match of the Day, to 20 commentary-free minutes.