Referees’ Association chairman hopes David Coote remains in English football
Referees’ Association chairman hopes David Coote remains in English football
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David Coote “deserves” to have a continued role in English football, the chairman of the Referees’ Association has said. Coote’s contract as an elite-level referee with Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) was terminated last month after a video emerged showing him making derogatory comments about Liverpool and their former manager Jurgen Klopp.
A separate video also showed Coote taking cocaine. In an interview with The Sun, released on Monday evening, Coote came out as gay and said his struggle to hide his sexuality had contributed to him making bad choices, such as the video about Liverpool, and his use of drugs.
Coote remains one of the most highly regarded VARs in Europe, and is keen when the time is right to have a role related to officiating, if not an on-field one. I'd love for him to stay in the UK. I'd love him to be part of the English Football Association, training, mentoring, out of the public light to look after himself. He has so much to offer.
Paul Field, the chairman of the RA which looks after the welfare of referees at all levels, has already seen the work Coote has done with young officials and hopes that experience is not lost to the English game. “He deserves to have a role. The work he does with young people is exemplary,” Field told the PA news agency.
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