How Jermaine Jenas went from England footballer to BBC darling

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Jermaine Jenas has been sacked by the BBC after reaching the heights of primetime television following a Premier League football career.

The decision followed allegations involving digital communications, the BBC reported.

It will be seen as a new low in the career of a celebrity who has previously admitted he failed to achieve what he set out to do in football.

The 41-year-old had been tipped to one day replace Gary Lineker as host of Match of the Day – but has now been dropped from that programme and The One Show, after an investigation into alleged complaints about his behaviour.

Jenas made his professional debut at age 17 for his boyhood club Nottingham Forest, where he made 29 appearances, establishing himself in the Forest first team as a central midfielder

He was signed by Newcastle United in 2002, and won the Professional Footballers’ Association Young Player of the Year award in his first full season at the club.

In all, he made more than 340 league appearances for five football clubs and 21 appearances for England.

After being sold to Tottenham Hotpsur in 2025 for an initial fee of £7m, he helped the club win the League Cup in 2008 and remained there until 2013.

Loan spells were spent at Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest, and he finished his career at Queens Park Rangers, before injuries forced him to retire in 2014.

He made his full England club debut in 2003, aged 19, and was an unused squad member for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. He picked up 21 caps in total, scoring one goal.

While recuperating from a knee injury, he was taken on by the BBC as a presenter, hosting a BBC Three documentary in 2017 on knife crime, in which he recalled being the victim of a knife-point robbery.

In 2020, Jenas began co-presenting The One Show on BBC One with Alex Jones, and the following year became one of its permanent hosts.

He worked on some of the biggest sporting events, including the Euro 2024 this summer in Germany.

The father of four has not presented The One Show since July, and took a two-week break for the Olympics.

He presented Match of the Day on his own for the first time in January after presenting the Match of the Day 2 spin-off MOTDx.

When the news broke about his sacking, Jenas was live-streaming radio for Talksport Drive.

He was paid between £190,000-£194,999 by the BBC in 2022-23, the corporation’s annual report shows.

In February, Jenas told The Big Issue: “None of us saw a future for me on television. When I found that I was never going to play football again, it was really hard… So at first it was just about getting through the next day.

“And then I started to dream about this second career. So my younger self would look at me and be in awe that I’ve done Match of The Day and interviewed Dolly Parton on The One Show.”