Gary Lineker says his 'dad joke tourettes' kicked in over now deleted 'bra none' Lioness tweet

Gary Lineker tells ITV News he deleted the tweet, not because it bothered him, but so those who hadn't watch the game didn't read the tweet 'in the wrong way'.

Gary Lineker has spoken out about why he deleted his 'bra none' joke tweet about the Lionesses Euro success, saying he has "dad joke tourettes".

The Leicester-born former England captain said he'd asked a couple of female friends what they thought about the tweet, and they said it was "absolutely fine".

But shortly after publishing the social media post, he was hit with controversy and comments regarding him as sexist.

His tweet said: "The Lionesses have only gone and done it, and Kelly is England's heroine, bra none."

The words "bra none" refers to winning goal-scorer Chloe Kelly, who celebrated England’s final goal by taking her shirt off.

The tweet has since been deleted by Lineker.

Speaking about the tweet, Lineker said: "I knew it was nonsense.

"Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows I do relentless amount of puns, I’ve got dad joke tourettes, it’s that kind of thing.

"I do it on Match of the Day and I’ve done it for years and I actually ran it by a couple of women friends of mine who are actually real feminists and I said ‘is this OK?’ and they went ‘it’s absolutely fine’."

Lineker adds: "I think what happened is that some people didn’t see the game and didn’t understand the context of the nuance so therefore they just assumed it was some kind of sexist reference when clearly it wasn’t.

"I eventually took it down, not because I was bothered about it because I actually thought it was fine, and practically everyone did, but for those who didn’t see the game I don’t want them to read it the wrong way, so I did take it down for that reason."