BBC asks viewers to vote for Football Focus final episode moment

BBC viewers are being asked to choose which Football Focus moment will be shown again in the programme’s final episode on Sunday, giving the long-running football magazine show one last public vote before it disappears from the BBC schedules after 52 years.

First broadcast in 1974, Football Focus became a fixed point in British sports broadcasting, the Saturday lunchtime programme where interviews, analysis and feature pieces framed the weekend’s football before the afternoon kick-offs. Its final run closes at the end of the 2025/26 season, a decision BBC Sport said was driven by changing audience behaviours and the wider move toward digital and on-demand football content.

The vote is built around archive moments that capture the show’s mix of access and playfulness. The shortlist includes an April Fools’ segment from Crystal Palace on 1 April 1995, when the programme joked about making goals 2ft wider and 2ft taller, Alistair McGowan’s appearance as Mark Lawrenson on 22 April 2000, a mannequin-challenge opening from 12 November 2016, a 10 March 2012 interview with Noel Gallagher and Mario Balotelli, and a 6 August 2022 conversation between Alan Shearer and Erling Haaland.

Alex Kay-Jelski, BBC Sport director, said Football Focus had been “hugely important” in BBC Sport’s history and had “played a key role in telling the stories of the game for generations of viewers.” The BBC also said the decision to end the programme was made before its wider £500 million savings announcement, underlining that the move was about changing viewing patterns rather than a late-cut budget response.

Alex Scott has presented Football Focus for the past five years, after replacing Dan Walker in 2021, and the BBC said she will remain central to its football coverage, including the Men’s World Cup this year, the 2027 Women’s World Cup, Women’s Super League coverage and Sports Personality of the Year. The schedule shift also marks a broader reset: The Football Interview will move into Football Focus’s Saturday 12:45pm BBC One slot, while Final Score will start earlier at 3:45pm.

The end of Football Focus reflects more than the loss of one programme. It closes the line on a format built for a shared broadcast moment, when millions could be counted on to watch the same football conversation at the same time. Its place in the BBC lineup now belongs to a sports media landscape that is increasingly fragmented, where live appointment viewing is giving way to clips, feeds and demand-led watching.