Gabby Logan told 'don't come back' after brutal World Cup demotion from TV chief

Gabby Logan has opened up about fearing for her television career after feeling "sidelined" by a previous supervisor.

Now a prominent figure at the BBC and recently announced as one of the new Match of the Day presenters stepping in for Gary Lineker, Logan is also the leading presenter for the BBC's Six Nations rugby coverage. With approximately three decades under her belt, she stands as an authoritative voice in sports journalism.

However, reaching such esteemed status hasn't been without its setbacks. The 51 year old broadcaster recalls a time when her position seemed uncertain and even contemplated shifting careers following a decision from her then ITV boss to "demote" her during the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Selected initially to lead ITV's England group stage matches against Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago in the tournament hosted by Germany, Logan was later sidelined in favour of Steve Rider.

She found herself presenting less significant games—a change that had already begun to shake her self-assurance—before being completely dropped from the World Cup team and told bluntly to "don't come back" amidst plans to return home briefly during the event, reports Wales Online.

Discussing these challenges on Kate Thornton’s podcast 'White Wine Question Time', she reflected: "I think I had a rough ride in my early thirties in my career, and I can't believe that's nearly 20 years ago. At the time, I thought it was going to be the end of my career."

Reflecting on her career transitions, Logan shared: "When I was leaving ITV and given another chance by the BBC... because even in my early 30s, I felt I'd already had this really long career and I'd done loads of great stuff. I'd been at Sky to start off with and went to ITV and did loads of brilliant things."

She added candidly, "But I kind of felt I was maybe going to have to shift and do something completely different, because I had a boss that wasn't really into me and wanted to slightly demote me. He took me off a World Cup in 2006."

Logan described the challenging moment in more detail: "My kids were a year old and I was flying off to Germany, leaving my babies behind, going to the World Cup. [But] in the middle of the World Cup, he kind of sidelined me, and I came home with my tail between my legs."

She continued, "I was due to do so many knockout games and he said, 'oh, just don't come back' basically. Go home and don't come back because I was due to go home for a few days. In between the end of the group stages and the knockout stages, there's always a couple of days off and I was going to go home because it was only Germany and the kids were a year old."

The experience made Logan reflect deeply about her future, as she recounted: "I remember being at home - we were doing up a house at the time, so we were renting a house in Barnes. It was a lovely day, it was gorgeous and the river was looking beautiful and the sky was blue.

"I just remember walking around the garden thinking 'Oh gosh, I love doing up houses, I'm just going to shift and go into property because that's what my mum does'. I was maybe 33 at the time and I thought maybe my law degree wasn't out of date and I could upgrade and go to bar school. I was really contemplating what to do next."

However, Logan confessed that this initial hurdle turned out to be a silver lining as she left ITV later that year to join the BBC, where her career took off.

"I was given an opportunity to go to the BBC, where I really felt I had to start again in quite a lot of ways," she said. "It was like I was going to a new school, in terms of proving yourself to the teachers and the other kids.

"When I look back now, how much more misogynistic the angles were to these articles and how always whatever I was wearing or looked like was talked about with regard to my performance. I was never it was never the same for a male colleague, they wouldn't talk about his suit.

"There was a lot of that to deal with, and I think it definitely fortified me. Once I got that second chance, as I saw it at the time - somewhere that I'd always hoped I might work because of the BBC having the long history with doing the Olympics and various other things that I really wanted to work on - I felt really grateful, and also that I was going to not let this opportunity go."