Micah Richards reveals how BBC colleague Mark Chapman helped him through father's death live on air

Micah Richards has opened up about one of the most difficult moments of his career: delivering live punditry for the BBC during England’s World Cup semi-final against Argentina on July 15, having just been told of his father Lincoln’s death.

Richards received the news from his brother by phone shortly before the broadcast began. Rather than step away, the former Manchester City and Aston Villa defender made the decision to carry on — a choice he credits almost entirely to the support of BBC presenter Mark Chapman.

“On the day it happened, my brother rang me before the semi-final and I’m going into it thinking, ‘How am I going to perform here? How am I going to act?’” Richards told The Sunday Times. “I was on the phone to Chappers [Chapman] for an hour. And he was saying, ‘Your dad would have wanted you to do it. This is what you’ve worked for since you’ve come into punditry.’”

Richards chose not to tell fellow pundits Joe Cole and Wayne Rooney before the show, not wanting to affect their performance. Chapman offered a quiet safety net instead. “Chappers said, ‘If in the first ten minutes you’re having a wobble, let me know and we can just continue with the rest of the guys.’ If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have got through it. One hundred per cent.”

Watching the footage back, Richards noticed the physical toll the situation took on him. “When I’m on camera, I’m sort of loud and obnoxious at times, but if you watch the footage, I keep tapping my foot. I was just trying to hold it together.”

After the broadcast, Richards confirmed his father’s death on social media, where tributes poured in from across the football world. He has since spoken about the longer trajectory of Lincoln’s decline, describing a painful period of watching someone he was powerless to help.

“Two years before he passed, I sort of saw it coming,” Richards said. “I didn’t think it would be so soon, but he was on a road and he couldn’t get out of it. And what was more heartbreaking is I couldn’t do anything. I was probably with him more than anyone in my life growing up and then he sort of took a turn for the worse.”

Richards, who retired from playing in 2019 after spells at Manchester City, Fiorentina and Aston Villa, has built a prominent second career in broadcasting and is widely regarded as one of the more engaging voices in English football punditry.