Referee David Coote has been suspended for his comments relating to Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp – but the situation could have a wider and more serious impact.
Coote is under investigation from the PGMOL after a video was released on Monday of the 42-year-old official labelling Klopp a “German c***” in a series of anti-Liverpool comments.
Seemingly filmed back in 2020, the timing of its release may well be a personal matter – but its content is of huge concern to the footballing public.
That is a sentiment shared among those within the media, in particular Coote’s damage to the trust in referees from not only fans but also those within the clubs themselves.
A former colleague of Coote’s, ex-referee and formerly PGMOL chief Peter Walton, spoke of his “huge surprise” at the behaviour of an official he described as “not one of the lads” in a column for the Times:
“What evidence we have now, the video itself, came as a huge surprise to me. There are some Premier League referees I consider more loose-lipped, and more laddish in their behaviour away from the public spotlight. David is not one of them.
“I would have described him as captain sensible, maybe a bit highly strung at times, and not one of the lads. Unlike some referees, you rarely see him laughing and joking with players during matches – he is generally very straight-laced. I look at the video and wonder if part of the problem is that he is trying to be someone he is not.”
Walton also touched upon a wider point on the ramifications of Coote’s words, in one of many media references to “conspiracy theorists”:
“If PGMOL ultimately finds that the video is as serious as it appears, the discipline David will face will be severe, but this episode will also damage the reputation of Premier League referees in general.
“I remain absolutely certain that our referees are not corrupt – it’s the present standard of refereeing that is the concern for me – but conspiracy theorists will seize on something like this.”
The Mail‘s Ian Ladyman saw it as “exactly what the conspiracy theorists have been waiting for,” with there rightly now a question mark over whether top-level officials can “whistle without prejudice”:
“The ramifications of Coote’s expletive-laden assault on Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool will be felt from the top of our football pyramid to the bottom. His moment of dismal and pathetic hubris has done a great disservice to our game. For this is about integrity, the most fundamental of all refereeing principles.
[…]“We expect our referees to whistle without prejudice. We presume all games begin with a blank canvas, without a vested interest and, ideally, with an absolute and utter ambivalence to what the outcome is.
“Because without that one basic tenet, we do not really have a refereeing system and without that we really do not have a game.
“Coote has threatened all that. He has placed that in jeopardy. Coote and his stupid, pie-eyed friend holding the mobile phone on which this 73-second career suicide note was filmed have undermined all of that in the time it takes to say ‘upload’.”
Former Liverpool striker John Aldridge was among those to call for Coote to “never referee again” in his column for the Liverpool Echo:
“If it all turns out to be true, in my opinion he’s bang to rights and can never referee ever again. Not a chance. His authority and neutrality would be seriously damaged.”
But more interesting were Aldridge’s views on referees’ club allegiances, with few genuinely believing that no Premier League officials support top-flight sides:
“Of course, there is no evidence to suggest that his outburst is anything to do with his own personal allegiances. But I have always said that referees should publicly declare who they support.
“There are only a few, like Jeff Winter from Middlesbrough, who ever came out and admitted their allegiance. All the others, they are said to support Altrincham, Bishop’s Stortford, Hartlepool, Bognor Regis – all these obscure teams.
“They are in the game because they love football and they’ve always supported their football team.
“But let’s be honest, if referees came out and said who they really supported, it would kick up a right stink. They would be under even more scrutiny in the public eye.
“But that’s just tough in my opinion – they should come out and say who they support, they should clarify it but they never will.”
Writing for the Guardian, Paul MacInnes agreed that Coote, as a “massive fool,” could rightly be removed from his role as a referee:
“The 42-year-old has brought the sport into disrepute and is surely at serious risk of never being allowed to referee again.
“Let’s be honest, such an outcome wouldn’t seem unfair. Coote has made a massive fool of himself in a way that’s actually difficult to comprehend.”
And like many of his peers, MacInnes expressed frustration at Coote’s words fuelling “conspiracy” over referees and bias against particular clubs:
“He let himself down, he let the game down, but he’s also chucked a whole scuttle’s worth of coal on to the flames of conspiracy.
“In the present day, fantasising about how the powers-that-be are biased against your team is a popular way of filling the hours between matches.
“Not just fans either, as Nottingham Forest proved with their public rant against Stuart Attwell which eventually resulted in a £750,000 fine being handed down by the FA. Everyone’s at it, and often without anything more than a hunch to go on.
“Now, thanks to Coote, those fears can be underwritten. If someone suggests it’s fantastical to think that a referee would allow personal animus to influence their work as a professional, you need only point to this two minutes of idiocy by way of rebuttal.
“This is living, breathing proof of what referees actually think, you might say if you were already the sort of person who is infuriated by them. Why would I give them the benefit of the doubt again?”
The Athletic‘s Nick Miller wrote a thoroughly engaging and incisive column on the fallout, nailing one of the perhaps overlooked points in the furore – the tinge of xenophobia:
“At the risk of treating this far too seriously, the point of the law in the real world is that justice not only must be done, but must be seen to be done. Coote has now created a situation where there will be suspicion over every decision he’s made with any vague relevance to Liverpool.
“Arguably, it’s not the headline insult that is the worst thing. Calling Liverpool [quite a bad word] and Klopp a [very bad word] would be bad enough, but what does the most damage is calling Klopp a German [very bad word]. Derogatory comments about a club and manager, plus flippant xenophobia, equals a big fat nope.”
Again, though, the prevalent topic was that of the impact Coote’s comments will have on the game and how referees are viewed, with there no longer a trust in their integrity:
“Presumably, Coote’s colleagues emitted groans that registered on the Richter scale when this emerged: here are a group of men and women who spend their lives fending off allegations of bias, of anti-Club X sentiment, who do their best to reject even the appearance of impropriety.
“Coote, it seems, has now ruined all of that, feeding the instincts of anyone who thinks there is some malign reason for any decision that they disagree with.”
It is worth acknowledging that, while Coote’s words were directly aimed at Liverpool and Klopp in particular, the overriding concern is that other officials could feel the same way about other clubs – or even the same club.
That brings into question their authority in general, as if we can no longer trust those in place to referee games, who can we?
