The BBC's former chief technology officer was sacked over the corporation's £100m Digital Media Initiative fiasco just as a football manager pays the price for relegation with their job, an employment tribunal has heard.
Daniel Stilitz QC, representing the BBC, said John Linwood was responsible for a "massive waste of public funds" and was guilty of a "quite shameful flight from responsibility" over the failure of the technology project.
He said Linwood was "in denial and remains in denial" about the problems facing DMI, which was axed by BBC director general Tony Hall last year.
Linwood is claiming unfair dismissal following his dismissal by the BBC. The corporation later wrote off nearly £100m as a result of the abandoned project.
Making his closing submission to the tribunal, Stilitz said the BBC was right to sack Linwood because he was "plainly the most responsible person for DMI" and compared Linwood to a football manager who pays the price for relegation with his job.
"Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal has been given £150m to spend on new players and has been told he's expected to win the league. Let's say next year Manchester United are relegated, will Mr Van Gaal keep his job?" said Stilitz.
"At the end of the day he is point person, he has overall responsibility and sometimes great responsibility and great failure ... raises a serious disciplinary case."
Stuart Ritchie QC, representing Linwood, responded by saying that Van Gaal's predecessor, David Moyes, was sacked but "was not subject to allegations of gross misconduct and disciplinary process" as Linwood had been.
Ritchie said Linwood had been caught "in the eye of a perfect storm" at a time when the BBC was under huge public scrutiny over the Jimmy Savile furore and controversy over multimillion-pound payoffs to former executives.
Ritchie told the central London tribunal: "Faced with that dilemma there was overwhelming pressure on the BBC to do preciesely what it did, to find a mechanism to remove Mr Linwood summarily.
"The single factor that has upset Mr Linwood the most in relation to the way this has been carried out is being subject to disciplinary proceedings for gross misconduct."
In his closing submission, Ritchie said BBC witnesses had lied "in particular in relation to the predetermined nature of the dismissal".
He said the BBC's director of operations, Dominic Coles, was "not an impressive witness and not a witness the tribunal can have any confidence in at all".
Ritchie said "the proper lines of investigation were not followed" and Linwood had suffered "serious reputational damage, upset and anxiety".
He said corporation management had made a "commercial decision" to close DMI because it did not want a pan-BBC system.
"Of course there were difficulties and delays with this project, but at the heart of the decision to pull the plug was a decision the BBC did not want and would not use a pan-BBC integrated system," he said.
"Where is the evidence in the failure to deliver the project in terms of Mr Linwood's culpability? When asked what [Linwood] could have done different ... not one person identified what action could have been taken to deliver this project."
Earlier Stilitz, in his closing remarks, said Linwood had shown a "wholly unrealistic refusal to accept any responsibility and a wholly unrealistic insistence there was anything with DMI".
He said Linwood had a "propensity to spin and give alternative truths" and had shown himself "quite capable of giving misleading and self-serving evidence when he considers it will advance his cause".
The tribunal will begin its deliberations in private on 2 June. They will last up to a week with a judgment expected within a further 28 days.
