David Coote’s alleged Liverpool comments were stupid and damaging – but I have some sympathy for him

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The allegations against David Coote contain a window into a broader problem - the way referees are treated is shocking.

Let’s start with the obvious – if the videos that have emerged purporting to show Premier League referee David Coote embarking on a foul-mouthed rant about Liverpool and their former manager Jürgen Klopp are genuine, then he is not a smart man.

Coote has been suspended by the PGMOL pending an investigation into his conduct, and the refereeing body has stated that they are treating the videos, which were posted to social media, as genuine. To make matters worse for Coote, further footage has since emerged which allegedly shows him “snorting white powder” while in Germany for Euro 2024.

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Nobody with half of a functioning brain would allow themselves to be filmed under such circumstances, and should the videos prove to be legitimate, then they will damage the image of English referees – already in a less-than-healthy state – not only because it will make them look like idiots by association, but also because it will fuel theories concerning their alleged biases.

Coote’s supposed verdict on Liverpool, and particularly on Klopp, are flecked with far too many four-letter words for them to be repeated here, but they have inevitably raised the hackles of plenty of the club’s supporters. After all, if someone has developed such strength of feeling towards a club and its coach, they may well be making decisions that disadvantage them, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Plenty of people are capable of setting their frustrations or prejudices aside in professional setting, of course, and Coote may well be among them. Besides, whenever officiating decisions go against your team, it’s always worth bearing Hanlon’s Razor in mind – never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Or, as if often the case with referees, their entirely human inability to achieve perfection.

Either way, it’s pretty plain that referees can’t make such comments and not expect questions to be asked of their professionalism. But while Coote’s alleged comments regarding Klopp have generated a whirlwind of additional four-letter words online, it’s hard, on that one point, not to have some sympathy for him.

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There are very few workplaces in which the treatment referees find themselves on the receiving end of – and especially fourth officials – would be tolerated, and there are very few walks of life in which a grown man screaming into a fellow professional’s face from a few centimetres away wouldn’t be considered abuse or bullying.

Granted, the Anfield touchline is a distinctly different working environment than a cubicle office or a retail space. Passions run high in sports and a significant percentage of fans behave very differently in stressful moments in the stands compared to the way they would handle such moments everywhere else. Still, the way that coaches and players talk to fourth officials has gone from grousing and griping to bellowing in a very short space of time.

Klopp was absolutely guilty of verbally abusing officials that way, not that he is even close to being alone. It is a behaviour that has become entirely normalised despite the fact that it would be considered abhorrent in almost any other scenario, let alone in any other professional setting.

Does that make Klopp a four-letter word for a particular piece of anatomy? He was more than capable of being warm and charming, and indeed the only people he ever really seem to act unpleasantly towards were officials. Somehow, a group of men and women who are tasked with a challenging job which is completely essential for football to happen have become dehumanised to the extent that even a seemingly perfectly decent and affable man would think nothing of screaming blue murder at them in a high-pressure situation.

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That’s rather less of a Klopp-specific problem than it is a broader social issue within the sport, based on how widespread such behaviour has become. Just a couple of days after these video nasties emerged, Manchester United coach Darren Fletcher was fined and suspended for three matches for verbally abusing a referee, and apparently for losing his temper sufficiently that he had to be held back by a fellow staff member.

Klopp is absolutely not the only Premier League manager guilty of unprofessional (or at least unkind) conduct on the touchline, and most of us would also have some choice language to use for a man who yelled at us incessantly while we attempted to do our jobs. We just wouldn’t necessarily allow someone to film it.

In short, any referee expressing frustration with the treatment they receive from coaches and players probably has a point. There are rather healthier and more constructive ways to express that point that on a sofa with a mouth full of coarse invective and a camera phone in your face, of course, but one of the takeaways from this scandal should be a reminder that referees are human and are upset and affected by the verbal abuse that they are on the receiving end of. It should not be normalised and accepted.

That’s especially true given the extent to which the worst habits of Premier League players and managers have trickled down to grassroots level. Referees are reportedly leaving the sport in droves, with those that hang on consistently abused and occasionally even assaulted.

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A dialogue needs to be opened between the PGMOL, Premier League clubs and their managers to row back the aggression exhibited towards officials and to reset the paradigm a little. Eventually, hopefully, the example would be picked up on down at rec grounds and age group matches, and life would be a little better (and safer) for an enormous number of people. Referees have been stripped of their dignity a little too often already. The alleged video of Coote won’t help in that regard, but perhaps it do some good if it becomes a stepping stone towards the conversations that need to be had.

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