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Football is dead... Gary Lineker ignored as American member of public asks for photograph with Piers Morgan

Lineker suffered the embarrassment of having to take the picture of his own wife and Morgan alongside the fan

Jack de Menezes
Monday 20 October 2014 16:29 BST
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Gary Lineker takes a picture of an American alongside Piers Morgan and Danielle Bux
Gary Lineker takes a picture of an American alongside Piers Morgan and Danielle Bux (Twitter/@GaryLineker)

Ladies and gentlemen, football as we know it is dead. This must be the case because a member of the public in Los Angeles asked Gary Lineker to take a picture of them alongside Piers Morgan, appearing to be completely oblivious to who the former England captain was.

Even Lineker found it funny, tweeting a picture of himself taking the picture afterwards along with the caption: “I used to enjoy the anonymity of LA until this dude asked me to take a photo of him @piersmorgan & @DanielleBux.”

Lineker is currently in the United States and was enjoying a night out with his wife Danielle Bux and Morgan, with the two TV personalities regularly trading friendly jibes on Twitter.

But while Lineker remains England’s second highest ever goalscorer with 48 goals in 80 appearances for the Three Lions, it still isn’t enough to crack the age-old conundrum that is ‘soccer’ in the US.

Lineker’s talents weren’t just contained to England either, given that he spent time during his 16-year professional career with Barcelona in Spain and Nagoya Grampus Eight in Japan, but it appears the household name is yet to spread across the Atlantic.

Morgan, however, has become something of a household name in the United States although that doesn’t make it any better for the former CNN talk show host.

The 49-year-old journalist became a target of sections of the American public due to his passionate campaign against the purchase and ownership of guns being legal, given the level of gun crime that currently blights the nation.

There was a petition to try and extradite Morgan back to the United Kingdom, and amazingly it gained more than the 25,000 signatures needed to go before the US Government. Needless to say, it was immediately dismissed.

The one saving grace for Morgan is that this American citizen didn’t appear to be one of those who backed the petition, and was delighted to get a photograph alongside Morgan and Bux. Unfortunately for Lineker, he wasn’t so pleased to be left out.

They also united to criticise Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger on Saturday following his interview with BBC reporter Jacqui Oatley. Wenger had given an “uncomfortable” response to the questions put forward by Oakley, with Morgan and Lineker blasting the 64-year-old Frenchman as “arrogant, defensive and patronising.

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