Meet ‘new Match of the Day host’ Kelly Cates, who is the daughter of a Liverpool icon and studied maths at university
KELLY CATES is reportedly set to quit Sky Sports and move to the BBC.
The 49-year-old, Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman will reportedly share hosting duties of Match of the Day and MOTD 2 next season, when Gary Lineker stands down.
Cates has worked for the BBC on and off since 2013, for Radio 5 Live.
She presented iconic fan phone-in show 606 alongside Ian Wright on Sunday’s between 2013 and 2018.
After joining Sky Sports her role was reduced, but Cates returned to host midweek sports show, 5 Live Sport, mostly on Tuesday’s, while she also provided coverage of the 2022 World Cup.
The daughter of Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish became a TV presenter at Sky Sports, working on several Premier League shows including Friday Night Live.
Sky Sports bosses are reportedly sad to see her leave – but she was understood to be the BBC’s leading external candidate to take over from icon Lineker.
It completes a remarkable journey for Cates, who has had an impressive rise in sports broadcasting.
It was a role she had no intention of taking when she was at university studying maths!
She comes from footballing royalty
Kelly grew up with football around her.
It was mum, Marina who would take her to games dad Kenny was playing in.
“When I was a baby my mum took me to matches to watch my dad play,” she said in an interview with magazine When Saturday Comes.
“I don’t remember a time when I didn’t go to football games – my earliest memories are of being in the players’ lounge with the other players’ children.”
However, that didn’t make Kelly a Liverpool fan.
When her father moved to clubs, including Blackburn and Newcastle United as a manager, she hoped they did well – even against the Reds.
Despite football being in her blood, she revealed she didn’t have as much of a flair for it as her famous father.
She laughed: “I ran down the wing thinking ‘Oh, this will be easy’, tripped over and knocked myself out!
“That was the end of my football career.”
Thought of a different life
Although she has become football broadcasting royalty, Cates nearly snubbed a chance to work in the game.
At university being a sports TV presenter was far from her mind.
She said: “I did a degree in maths but after I left university I wanted to do something different.
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“The Sky Sports News channel was being launched and they were looking for young people who loved football.
“It was new and no one was watching so they pretty much said to us: ‘Go and play at being on the telly!”‘
Family came first
Since the Millennium, Cates’ career rise has followed a steep trajectory.
She initially left Sky Sports in 2016, after wanting to start a family with then fiancé Tom Cates, who she shares two children with.
“I left Sky Sports News in 2006, after the Germany World Cup,” she told The Overlap’s ‘Not Just Football’ podcast back in October.
“I’d been there for eight years and I had just turned 30, or I was just turning 31. I was engaged, but not yet married. I knew I wanted to have children quite soon at that point.
“It had just been, for a long time, kind of filtering away and running in the back of my head. I came to the end of my contract and was working under my new contract and within the space of about three days, made the decision.
“I was driving into work one day, I walked in and I said, ‘I don’t want to sign this new contract, I want to go!’ I had nothing to go to.
“I just walked away, but I was so sure that I had to go and make that change. I did it when I left university to go to Sky, which is different, because then you get something that’s really exciting, shiny and new, dangled in front of you and you think, ‘I’m going to take this jump'”.
Cates got married in 2007, although they sadly divorced in 2021.
That same year she began a job at the now defunct Setanta Sports – bouncing around jobs at ESPN, ITV, and STV.
However, in 2016 she made her return back to Sky Sports – feeling she had unfinished business.
Initially, she fronted their EFL coverage before becoming the main anchor for the Premier League.
Cates has been a huge success for the channel, alongside Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher.
Who can forget when she hilariously turned her back on them, after they turned their back on her during a segment that went wrong.
Sky’s loss is BBC’s gain, as Kelly will divide her time between MOTD and her role working for Radio 5 Live.
It could be a match made in heaven.