New MOTD host Kelly Cates almost SNUBBED football completely – despite being the daughter of Liverpool royalty
KELLY Cates almost snubbed football completely despite being the daughter of Liverpool royalty.
Gabby Logan, Cates and Mark Chapman will host Match Of The Day after Gary Lineker leaves at the end of the season.
The confirmation follows speculation about the presenting line-up of the BBC‘s flagship football show following news last year that Lineker would step back from the role.
The former England striker has presented the show since 1999.
Cates, who will also continue her role with Sky Sports, said: “Once I sit in that chair and the theme music starts, I just know that’s going to be a really incredible moment.
“I’ve worked with a lot of the pundits before and they’re all fantastic, so I’m just looking forward to getting started.
“I’ve known Gabby and Mark really well for years so to bring it all together, embracing the digital side of things, it feels like a really comprehensive football package for fans and that’s what makes it so exciting too.”
She has been a presenter with Sky Sports since rejoining them in 2016, fronting their coverage of the Premier League.
The 49-year-old daughter of former Scotland and Liverpool footballer Sir Kenny Dalglish also hosts BBC Radio 5 Live‘s Tuesday night sports coverage.
But Cates 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.
“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.