Kenny Dalglish told Kelly Cates he ‘can’t keep a secret’ amid MOTD role rumours

Incoming Match Of The Day presenter Kelly Cates has said her father, former Liverpool star Sir Kenny Dalglish, told her he did not want to know if she had got the role before it was announced because he “can’t keep a secret”.

The 49-year-old said she had also struggled to stay quiet about her “exciting” new job on the BBC football highlights programme, which will see her share hosting duties with Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan from next season.

Speaking on RTE’s The Late Late Show, she said: “When I was having to keep it a secret, I only spoke to my mum, she was the only person who knew anything about it.

“And my dad had spoken to my mum and said, ‘what do you know about this?’, and she said, ‘well, Kelly’s talking to me’, and he said, ‘look, she’s going to have to keep this a secret, don’t tell me anything, I go to play golf, and everybody’s asking me about it, and I don’t want to know, because I can’t keep a secret’.

“But now he’s quite excited, and they came down to visit, and we went out to dinner with my daughters and my mum and dad, and we were sitting at the dinner table, and they’re like, ‘oh, congratulations’, and they ordered a bottle of champagne.

“That was meant to be a secret, but my mum hadn’t done it very well, and then she’s going to the waiter, ‘can you, can you bring the, and the waiter’s going (shaking his head)’, it was the wrong waiter.

“She got the wrong person, so he wasn’t in on the joke, and then she started singing what she thought was the theme tune to Match Of The Day, but she was actually singing Ring Of Fire.”

The presenter, who will remain in her role anchoring Sky Sports’ Premier League coverage, also spoke about the show’s new three presenter format, which will come in when she joins the programme.

She added: “I think that’s going to work, one of the really nice things about it is that we’re all around about 50, and we’re all at this stage in our lives where you feel like you’re kind of not coasting towards the end of your career, but you’re like, ‘do you know what? There’s probably no big surprises around the corner’.

“But for all three of us, it’s really lovely, we’re at a stage where our kids are growing up that we’re going to get a little bit more time on our hands, and we’ve got other things that we’re really passionate about that we can carry on with.

“So for all of us, it works really well to be one of a three.”

Cates, Chapman and Logan will take on the role from the start of the 2025/2026 Premier League season, after Gary Lineker announced last year that he was stepping down from the role.

The trio will split duties on Saturday’s main show, Match Of The Day 2 on Sundays, and the latest addition to the football highlights schedule – Match Of The Day: Champions League, which takes place on Wednesdays where there is a fixture schedule in the competition.

They are the sixth set of main presenters for the weekly football highlights programme, which first aired in 1964.

The trio will be joined by pundits and presenters including former England players Alan Shearer, Micah Richards and Alex Scott, as well as Jason Mohammad, Kelly Somers, John Murray and Steve Crossman.