The BBC rejected a request from Gordon Brown's advisers for the prime minister to appear on the Match of the Day 2 sofa alongside Adrian Chiles, it has emerged.

Mr Brown, a fanatical fan of his boyhood club Raith Rovers, had wanted to go on the BBC2 show to discuss England's 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids, with a request first put in late last year.

But the BBC, which is bound by strict impartiality rules, ruled that with the election expected in May it would be inappropriate to allow the prime minister to appear.

"We made the judgment it wouldn't be appropriate in the run-up to the election," a spokesman said.

In recent months Downing St has made more of an effort to branch out into non-news media, with the prime minister talking about the death of his baby daughter Jennifer in a one-on-one Piers Morgan interview last month.

He would not have been the first prime minister to appear on a BBC football show either, with Tony Blair taking his spot on the Football Focus sofa in 2005.

But the BBC said that Football Focus was more of a magazine programme and that non-football guests rarely appeared on Match of the Day 2, broadcast on Sunday nights.
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