Andy Gray is returning to a prominent British football commentary role after more than a decade away from major UK broadcasting, putting a familiar voice back on air while revisiting the circumstances of his departure from Sky Sports.

The former Scotland international, 70, has joined talkSPORT’s Champions League team and is due to work alongside Jim Proudfoot for Liverpool’s match against Atletico Madrid at Anfield. talkSPORT has indicated the role will extend beyond a single appearance.¹

The comeback is being cast in two distinct ways. One account emphasises Gray’s experience, including two decades as a Sky Sports football commentator and subsequent work for beIN Sports in Qatar. It notes that, after returning to Britain earlier this year, Gray had said he wanted to test whether he could still work from the commentary box: “I would like that.”¹ Richard Keys, his former on-air colleague, endorsed that ambition, calling Gray “the best I’ve ever known” as a co-commentator.¹

At the same time, another report frames this as Gray’s first UK commentary return since his Sky Sports dismissal.² He was dismissed in 2011 after off-air recordings emerged in which he and Keys questioned whether assistant referee Sian Massey understood the offside law; the recordings included sexist comments, according to the report.¹

Gray has said his views have changed since then. “I can’t imagine saying today what I said then, I just can’t,” he said, while describing the episode as an unusually intense public backlash.¹

The two accounts therefore agree on the central fact of his return, but place different weight on it: one stresses a broadcaster resuming a career he says he missed; the other underlines that any high-profile return remains inseparable from the controversy that interrupted it.