Greg Dyke, a former director general of the BBC, has said Jeremy Clarkson is a “disaster waiting to happen”.
Dyke, the current chairman of the Football Association, said that the BBC “cannot win either way” when the outcome of the corporation’s official inquiry is made public.
“First of all, I’d say that I don’t think Jeremy Clarkson is the first presenter I’ve met who would have liked to have thumped his producer – but in truth he is a disaster waiting to happen really for the BBC,” said Dyke, speaking in an interview with ITV News.
The BBC’s internal inquiry into Clarkson’s fracas with Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon is expected to made public as soon as Tuesday.
Dyke said that the BBC is facing a PR disaster which ever way the internal inquiry rules.
“I’m glad I’m not the executive who has to take that decision because if you were, you can’t win either way now,” he said. “Even if you decide to keep Jeremy … what happens next?”
The internal inquiry is being led by Ken MacQuarrie, the head of BBC Scotland who oversaw the investigation into the disastrous Newsnight edition that falsely accused the late Conservative peer Lord McAlpine of being involved in the north Wales child abuse scandal.
The BBC moved to suspend Clarkson on 10 March after it emerged he had been involved in an incident with Tymon after the Top Gear presenter was unable to get a hot meal at a Yorkshire hotel following a day filming for the BBC2 show.
On Sunday, reports stated that Clarkson would consider suing for wrongful dismissal if the corporation does not reinstate him to the show.
BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, has been forced to postpone four live shows in Norway due to the uncertainty over Clarkson’s future. The Top Gear Live event, booked in Stavanger for the 27-28 March, had sold almost 20,000 tickets priced as high as £95.
The final three episodes of the current series of Top Gear have been indefinitely postponed at least until the outcome of the investigation is known.
At an event on Thursday night, Clarkson launched an expletive-laden tirade against his BBC bosses, describing Top Gear as “a great show and they fucked it up”. But writing in The Sunday Times, he said the remarks had been in jest, in an attempt to grab the attention of the audience at the charity event he was attending.
