MARK Chapman overcame heartbreaking tragedy before he was named as host of Match of the Day.
It was confirmed today Chapman, 51, will share presenting duties with Kelly Cates and Gabby Logan next season.
Mark Chapman, Gabby Logan and Kelly Cates will host Match Of The Day[/caption]
The BBC Sport presenter sadly lost his wife Sara in 2020[/caption]
The BBC broadcaster is dating Dubai-based estate agent Clere Collier[/caption]
Gary Lineker will step down as Match of the Day host at the end of the season[/caption]
Gary Lineker is stepping down as host of the Saturday night show at the end of the season.
Chapman has been broadcasting for more than 25 years and presents BBC’s Match Of The Day 2 covering the action and reaction from the Premier League.
He said: “I know the history of a lot of radio programmes and TV programmes and I do feel honoured to be following in the footsteps of the people that we are following in and respectful of what they have done.”
But the BBC Sport presenter sadly lost his wife Sara in 2020.
They married in 2001 and had three children together.
Mark is a very private person but previously said of his family: “I know my family are very proud of me but I don’t look at what I do as being anything particularly special.
“I’ve got a great job and it’s so much fun but I don’t go in for any of that celebrity-nonsense.
“I’d much prefer a pint at The Railway any day.”
Sara passed away on June 3, 2020, after battling cancer.
A source told The Sun: “Sadly Sara passed away on June 3. Mark and the kids are absolutely devastated.
“The family was there and it’s just a really sad situation.”
Yet Chapman found new love with partner Clere Collier.
He has been dating Clere since the start of last year with the pair regularly posting loved-up snaps on social media together.
Divorcee Clere is a Dubai-based estate agent who runs an international property empire and splits her time between the UK and the UAE.
Despite the challenge of living on different continents, Clere and Chapman have found ways to see each other.
Chapman jetted out to Dubai for an Easter break last year.
While mother-of-two Clere is regularly visiting Chapman in Manchester, where the BBC star lives.
Who are the three new hosts?
NEW Match Of The Day hosts Mark Chapman, Kelly Cates and Gabby Logan have years of experience in sports broadcasting and few controversial moments between them.
Former England and Leicester City striker Gary Lineker will leave the role, which he has held since 1999, at the end of the current season.
Here is a look at those taking over:
Kelly Cates
Cates has been a mainstay on Sky Sports, where she fronts its football coverage, having rejoined the channel in 2016.
The Glasgow-born presenter, whose father, Sir Kenny Dalglish, played for and managed Liverpool, was part of the BBC’s Olympic coverage, and is also a BBC Radio 5 Live reporter.
She previously fronted highlights programme Football On 5, which was retitled Football League Tonight, and has been hosting the Premier League’s weekly The Kelly And Wrighty Show with footballer Ian Wright and the Sky Bet Not Just Football podcast with Christine Lampard and Hayley McQueen.
Cates has experience in a variety of other broadcasting roles, including presenting for Setanta Sports and ESPN, reporting for ITV at the 2010 World Cup and being part of Channel 4’s 2012 Paralympics coverage.
She has previously spoken about sexism in football, after then-Sky Sports presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys claimed female officials “don’t know the offside rule”.
She posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Just read about something called ‘the offside rule’. Too much for my tiny brain. Must be damaged from nail polish fumes.”
She was also at the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, when she was 13, and spoke in a 2017 documentary, Kenny, about her father having difficulties addressing his grief over the tragedy, in which 97 people died.
Mark Chapman
“Chappers” has been the permanent presenter of Match Of The Day 2, which shows highlights of Premier League action on Sunday evenings, since 2013.
He is also a key part of the BBC’s coverage of football on radio, presenting Sports Report on 5 Live and the Monday Night Club on the same station, as well as their wider sports broadcasting including the Paris Olympics this year.
Chapman backed Lineker during his impartiality row with the BBC after the former footballer was taken off air for a tweet comparing the language used to launch a new government asylum seeker policy to that of 1930s Germany.
He was among the staff who walked out of sports shows over the incident in 2023, before the broadcaster apologised and reinstated Lineker as host of MOTD, and Chapman returned to his job.
In 2024, Chapman and Logan began hosting Global Player’s The News Agents spin-off podcast, titled The Sports Agents, which features sports coverage and interviews.
Gabby Logan
Logan joined Sky Sports as a presenter after university, before working at ITV and then leaving to present Inside Sport at the BBC after being sidelined by ITV Sport bosses during the World Cup.
The former gymnast has previously presented MOTD in Lineker’s absence on many occasions, while she also fronted the BBC’s coverage as the Lionesses stormed to glory in the Women’s Euros in 2023.
The multiple winner of Sports Presenter of the Year has also been involved in the BBC’s coverage of Six Nations rugby, and the last four summer Olympic Games, as well as co-presenting BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Logan has also been outspoken, telling the Radio Times in 2013 that she was once rebuked by a BBC boss for looking “too glamorous” after he spotted her in high-heeled boots.
Outside the BBC, where the salaries list for the 2022/23 financial year showed she earned £240,000-£244,999, she has also featured on Prime Video’s Every Game Every Goal as well as her podcast with Chapman.
Logan, who is married to ex-Scotland rugby player Kenny Logan, has previously told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that, when she first started out as a broadcaster, she spent time proving “people wrong” who looked down on her for being a woman presenting sport.
Her younger brother Daniel died while playing football with their father, former Welsh footballer Terry Yorath, in their garden.
It was later found that Daniel had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition which affects the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body.
At the age of 12, Logan had been watching her father play for Bradford City on the day in May 1985 when 56 people were killed in a fire at the Valley Parade stadium. Her mother had left early.
She told the Telegraph: “Ever since then, whenever there’s a disaster you think about the decisions that people make within those moments.”
