For a man in the early throes of romance, Mark Chapman looked thoroughly miserable when he presented Match Of The Day last weekend.It wasn’t so long ago friends told me he was the ‘happiest he has ever been’, having fallen head over heels for co-star Kelly Cates. His plum job was also a reason to cheer, having replaced Gary Lineker as host alongside Kelly and Gabby Logan.So why then was ‘Chappers’, as he is commonly known, accused by MOTD viewers of appearing ‘bored,’ ‘dead-eyed’ and ‘sucking the life out of the programme’ as he ‘counts down the days until he can collect his pension’?The answer, I can reveal, is that he’d had an almighty bust-up with his boss before the show went live last Saturday at 10.30pm.Sources tell me the 53-year-old presenter was less than impressed with that night’s line-up of pundits: former England women’s captain Steph Houghton and ex-Arsenal defender Martin Keown. And he said as much to Alex Kay-Jelski, the BBC’s director of sport.Chapman, who has despised his superior for ‘quite some time’ according to his comrades, decided to ‘have it out’ with Kay-Jelski.Given the significance of the Premier League games that day – Aston Villa had ended Manchester City’s unbeaten start to the season, while Spurs had routed London neighbours Chelsea – Chapman felt the pundits should have been of a higher calibre, more like Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney.While Martin Keown is also a former England international, I’m told Chapman suspected Keown had only been invited on to the show because he was Kay-Jelski’s pal. After all, Kay-Jelski had helped Keown write his 2024 autobiography On The Edge, prompting Chapman to claim there was a ‘chumocracy’ at play when the panel was selected. Friends recently said Mark Chapman is the ‘happiest he has ever been’, having fallen head over heels for his Match of the Day co-star Kelly Cates‘Chappers was absolutely furious at the panel,’ says my MOTD snitch. ‘What really annoyed him was that he thinks Martin is not a big enough name. Chappers concluded [Keown’s appearance on the show] was because, a couple of years ago, [Kay-Jelski] was involved in the ghost writing of his book. It didn’t sit right with him at all. He can’t stand Alex at the best of times but this really pissed him off.’Now show sources fear that the row has left relations between the two men ‘irreparable’.I’m also told that Kelly, who Chapman began dating in May, is a fan of Kay-Jelski but even she, a renowned peacemaker, hasn’t been able to smooth things over.‘Kelly is a lovely woman who gets on with everyone, which is quite the feat,’ says the show source. ‘She rather likes Alex but she has no influence on this.’It is also claimed Kay-Jelski, 43, is ‘not exactly ecstatic’ at his two presenters being in a relationship. Although they never host the programme together, it has been suggested he doesn’t like ‘extra-curricular headlines’ that divert from the BBC’s work.‘Alex likes things his way,’ says a BBC source. ‘He has chopped and changed things around and many people don’t like it.’Kay-Jelski replaced the long-serving Barbara Slater as director of sport in 2024, and put together the show’s new presenting line-up after Lineker’s exit. But Kay-Jelski was always a wild-card choice. Educated at the fee-paying University College School in Hampstead, north London, he began his journalism career at the Daily Mail as a trainee sub-editor.He later moved to The Times where he horrified some readers with his robust defence of allowing male-born trans athletes to compete in women’s sport. MOTD viewers accused Chapman of appearing ‘bored,’ ‘dead-eyed’ and ‘sucking the life out of the programme’ last weekend Chapman reportedly does not see eye to eye with Alex Kay-Jelski, the BBC’s director of sport (left)In a 2019 column, he likened support for single-sex-based categories as portraying trans athletes as ‘threatening’, which to him was no better than racism or homophobia.And the ‘woke’ tag has followed him to the BBC where he’s hardly won a legion of friends.In the summer, I told how he and former England striker Shearer had fallen out over the pundit not being invited to the Sports Journalism Awards ceremony when MOTD won best sports show.Shearer demanded to know why he wasn’t told the show he had worked on for 20 years had been shortlisted, and he was further irritated that not one of Kay-Jelski’s management team called or texted to congratulate him.His appearances on Match Of The Day have been noticeably fewer, after he and Rooney had been starring on the show most weeks until recently. But Kay-Jelski insists this is not due to any tension between him and Shearer, who, in the meantime, has been a regular guest on Lineker’s The Rest Is Football podcast.MOTD insiders also say staff are enraged by what they perceive to be their boss’s plan to prioritise social media and YouTube content over original television programming. I was told some months ago that ‘civil war’ had broken out behind the scenes, and production staff have been left ‘at the end of their tether’ with their boss’s new, more youth-oriented, direction for the show.‘The view inside Match Of The Day is that Alex’s ego has grown out of control,’ says my source. So just where does that leave Chapman’s future on the show? Once a stand-in for Lineker, he was given the bigger role for the 2025-26 season. While Kelly and Gabby are said to ‘very much toe the line,’ Chapman can’t help but speak up.‘If Alex was a football manager not a BBC executive, you could see him benching Chappers,’ says my source. ‘Alex is the boss and Chappers isn’t on board, and he makes that very clear.’For its part, the BBC denies there is any falling out between the pair, saying there is ‘no truth’ in the story ‘whatsoever’.My source adds: ‘What’s interesting is that Chappers is so happy on Radio 5, he’s like a different person to the one he was on last weekend’s Match Of The Day. But the viewers have always loved Chappers and he is very popular inside the BBC, and Alex knows this.‘But at some point, something is going to have to give.’