Kelly Cates reveals why landing Match of the Day role 'killed me' & insists there will be no friction between Gary Lineker's successors in 'ego-filled world'

Cates, who is the daughter of Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish, is already well versed in the demands of hosting duties having spent several years working for Sky Sports. She also fronts a radio show for the BBC and is involved with various other projects.

She is now preparing to take on one of the most prominent positions in English football. After seeing ex-England international Lineker fill the MOTD chair for 25 years, he is preparing to step down at the end of the 2024-25 campaign. Cates, Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan will be forming a three-person Premier League highlights presenting team from next season.

Cates has told Kate Thornton’s podcast, White Wine Question Time, of how she responded to landing that job: "I'm no good at secrets. It killed me. Once the news was announced, I genuinely could have slept for about two days. I found the stress of keeping the secret really hard. And even though it's a nice secret, it was a little bit like the early stages of pregnancy where you feel terrible but you can't tell anybody and you're like, but then every now and again, there's that. You get that little feeling where you go, I've got a really lovely secret, and I can't tell anybody. It was awful. And I was lying to genuinely good friends. Or at least lying by omission.

"It was awful. I hated it. But I had the conversation fairly early on, all in very vague terms, because I was already doing radio for the BBC. I was already working on Five Live, and so it was natural for me to have meetings when a new boss came in and everything was being changed, and so that was quite natural. And then during one of those meetings, it was, well, you know, we're rethinking how we're going to do Match of the Day and would you be interested in being in the mix? Inside I just couldn't wait for the meeting to end just to go, oh my God this is just incredible."

Cates added on why there will be no friction between herself, Chapman and Logan when it comes to filling Lineker’s shoes: "I think people have a perception that it's a massively ego-filled world, and it is at times, and you have to have a certain amount of ego to feel that you can do the job. You have to have a certain amount of confidence. What you don't want to be in a position is to be in the position where you feel that we're all trying to step over each other and scramble over each other, and the fact that we're all, you know, the same age, we're all at the same stage of our careers.

"We've all got other things outside of Match of the Day that we're passionate about and really invested in. It means that none of us are kind of treading on each other because of our own insecurities. We're all really comfortable with who we are and where we are in our careers. So, it really works for all of us. And we're all at a stage in our real lives as well, where we want to be able to spend time with our families. And we've got, you know, kids at different ages and different things going on in our in our home lives as well, which is nice to be able to keep all that in the mix."

Lineker will be staying on with the BBC, as he remains involved with their FA Cup coverage and the 2026 World Cup finals next summer. He is, however, being freed to explore more ventures away from Match of the Day having fronted that show since 1999.