The BBC have issue an apology after viewers were left appalled by the coverage of the incident involving Denmark's Christian Eriksen on Saturday evening.
Just before half time in his side's opening Euro 2020 match against Finland, the Danish midfielder dropped to the floor suddenly, with medics rushing over to help him.
As his teammates gathered round, Eriksen, 29, received prolonged treatment, with cameras then cutting to his wife on the sidelines as she was consoled by Denmark captain Simon Kjaer and keeper Kasper Schmichael.
The camera then panned away from the pitch and the BBC coverage cut to Gary Lineker back in the studio, who was visibly shaken by what he was unfolding, as was pundit Alex Scott.
Minutes after the match was suspended and BBC coverage ended, pictures of Inter Milan player Eriksen awake on a stretcher circulated on social media, much to the relief of football fans the world over.
It was then reported that Eriksen had been taken to hospital and "stabilised."
And, as the game was about to restart around 7.30pm, BBC cut The Hit List short and returned to their coverage with Lineker issuing a swift apology.
He told viewers: "We apologise to anyone who was upset by the images broadcast. In-stadium coverage is controlled by Uefa as the host broadcaster, and as soon as the match was suspended, we took our coverage off air as quickly as possible.”
Former England striker Lineker himself apologised on Twitter, writing: "I understand some of you would have been upset with some of the images shown (we were too).
"Obviously these were the host pictures and out of our control. They should have stayed on a wide of the stadium. Apologies.
Prior to the BBC resuming their coverage of the game, the channel came in for a lot of criticism on Twitter.
One viewer fumed: "That was the most frightening thing I have ever seen. Shame on the #bbc for continuous filming of the distress of the players and his wife. Glad he is conscious and praying for a speedy recovery."
Another reacted: "Good on the Danish players for standing around Eriksen attempting to shield him from the cameras, Ghoulish behaviour by the BBC for not cutting back to the studio when they realised how serious it was.
