The San Antonio venue was a firm favourite amongst tourists on the party island
Wayne Lineker has announced the closure of one of his Ibiza venues after 37 years. Sharing the news on Instagram, Wayne said it was “the end of an era” for the San Antonio hotspot.
Sports bar Linekers is one of many venues owned by Wayne – brother of footballer Gary – and had become a firm favourite amongst tourists. The Celebs Go Dating star said in his video: “The End of an Era… the home of football for tourists for 37 years across the world…”
He explained that the flagship venue in Puerto Banus, Marbella, will stay open and is “thriving”. Wayne also owns the famous beach club O Beach Ibiza, which opened in 2012 and fast became a popular spot for celebrities.
READ MORE: Coleen Rooney seen without wedding ring after Wayne partied with mystery womenREAD MORE: Wayne Lineker breaks down in tears as son makes brutally honest comment about his lifestyle
The news comes after Wayne vowed to ditch his hard-partying ways following a terrifying health diagnosis and hospitalisation. Speaking to co-hosts Ed Balls and Susanna Reid in January, the 63-year-old revealed just how bad things were during his darkest moments of his battle with drugs and alcohol addiction.
Wayne revealed shockingly that at one point, he would down vodka and Redbull for breakfast every day. After describing 2025 as both the “worst but the best year of my life”, he admitted that after 37 years drinking “very much every day, enough was enough”.
He said: “I found myself in a never-ending cycle of lack of energy in the mornings when I woke up. My breakfast of choice was a cheese and tomato toastie and a vodka Red Bull. I was drinking all day, every day. It was a never-ending cycle I couldn’t get out of because I didn’t want to spend the whole day in my villa on my own, hungover, anxious.
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He added: “I reached out and got what I called my magic medicine at the time, I’d have a drink. I was so anxious in the mornings because I wasn’t behaving very well and I was doing some silly things and some viral videos came out of me. It was the turning point, really.”
Another harsh realisation came when Wayne’s own son, who also lives in Ibiza, told him he could no longer pick up his granddaughters from school.
“My son Duane called me in the office one day – I’ve got two granddaughters in Ibiza who I collect regularly from school. He said, ‘Dad, we can’t have you picking up the girls from school anymore.'”
Asked by Susanna if he thought he’d become ‘a danger to the safety of the children’. Wayne replied, “Yeah because I’d always got alcohol in my system or drugs. Even though I might have been compos mentis the next day reasonably, I’m not alert, I’m not being myself. As much as an upset that was, it really hit home.”
The brother of football pundit Gary also opened up about his recent brush with death amid his pneumonia battle – which saw him forced to remain in hospital over Christmas, before being discharged before the New Year.
“I was close to death, twice. I actually went to Dubai and caught an infection of what I thought was very similar to Covid so I was worried. I jumped on the plane, put a mask on and went home”, he explained.
“When I got home, this was about eight, nine weeks ago, I was feeling really ill so my infection that I had seemed to be getting worse. I had a couple of hours sleep and it was late at night, 2am and I went into bed and my phone was on the other side of the room. I woke up two hours later and I couldn’t move at all.
Explaining the agony he was in, the Celebs Go Dating alum continued, “I wasn’t paralysed but the pain I received attacked the lower spine in my back and I managed to crawl to the phone, got out of my bed. It was probably the worst two minutes of my life, I was in so much pain but I had to call an ambulance. I couldn’t explain to them where I lived.”
“I phoned my daughter and I knew she’d be awake in Dubai and I thought I was having a heart attack. She was super upset, she called her mum who lives really close to me. She’s come round at 3 in the morning and called the ambulance in. It was so horrific, it’s not just chest infection, it’s your whole body.”
Asked by Ed if he thought the alcohol and drugs he’d consumed in the past made his health battles so bad, Wayne responded, “The way I see it, I went to rehab for five weeks. While I was in rehab, my immune system crashed.
“Apparently it’s a thing after you’ve been drinking for such a long period of time and heavily, your immune system says, ‘Where’s my alcohol? If you don’t give it me, I’m going to make you pay.'”
Wayne told Ed and his co-host Susanna Reid that his big hope now is to open a rehab centre, to help others following his own difficult experiences. He explained that his target audience are the “small percentage who can’t stop when they have started, who I wanted to get a message to help.”
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