The David Coote Affair

Time for robots to referee games?

Jamie Carragher is an Everton fan.

Yes, really.

Carragher used to go home and away to watch the Toffees, having been born to a fiercely Evertonian household. But he played his whole career for Liverpool, an experience that he says drew the blue blood out of him, lest his devotion to Anfield could never be question.

And football fans happily believe him, just as they do the countless Spurs fans who have ended up playing for Arsenal, or lifelong Man Utd supporters who play for West Ham. Once they pull on the shirt - everyone seems to accept - that is where their loyalty lies.

So why not believe the same of someone, perhaps Jurgen Klopp-hating David Coote, wearing black shirt and holding a whistle?

Fans seem to have an inability to believe that referees can put their own feelings aside - perhaps because most supporters find that hard enough to do when judging decisions on matchday. And once you are through the turnstile, you’ve already abandoned reason anyway. We all do it. Supporting a football club requires a suspension of disbelief and removal from reality.

“And it’s Briiiistooool Rovers, Briiiistooool Rovers FC, they’re the greatest teeee-am, the world has ever seen.” Do they really believe that? In the moment, yes. As all fans do. And howling every time the whistle is blown against them is similarly one-eyed.

Those who say Coote cannot dislike Klopp and fairly referee his team do so because they cannot imagine doing it themselves.

There is a refereeing crisis in this country, and has been for some time. Scores of amateur games are cancelled each year because officials cannot be found who are willing to withstand the abuse and in some cases violence meted out by players on whistle-blowers. On social media, it’s almost worse (albeit without the physical threat). The blowback to the vocal defence of officials by Ref Support UK, a registered charity providing support to referees, is a good example of how many users now believe simply being a referee is enough to hate someone for. They are a nebulous cabal of bad actors and saboteurs, ready to destroy the hopes and dreams of YOUR team.

The example is set by professionals - players and coaches - and quickly filters down into the amateur game. VAR, initially heralded as an innovation that would eradicate the need it surround the referee in the Premier League, has done nothing of the sort. Every penalty appeal, however weak, is quickly followed by a circle of players around the official, despite the annual directive to book every player who does it. The only difference is they are hoping the screams reach Stockley Park and not just the cowed official in front of them.

There are bad referees, of course. And there are good ones. There are fewer of the latter these days because the intake at the bottom is narrowing. The suggestion of importing referees from overseas is not a bad concept: cast a wider net, catch a bigger fish. But the idea that they would, because they had no geographical bias of birthright, somehow not also think Jurgen Klopp an unpleasant chap is wrongheaded.

Referees are not grown in a laboratory. (Given their dwindling numbers, it would be pretty handy if they were.) They have to be from somewhere, a fact that always infuriates some fans who insist that because someone grew up in Manchester, they couldn’t possibly referee any teams from there, and they have to deal with football managers on a weekly basis.

Football managers who routinely scream, shout and question the integrity of officials and expect to face no repercussions for doing so. If you had been in David Coote’s shoes for the last five years, would you have the same opinion of Jurgen Klopp? Quite possibly, even if you would not be so stupid as to commit that assessment to camera.

I don’t have the answer to the refereeing crisis, but I do know that putting a tin-foil hat on and deciding that David Coote is the reason your team didn’t win the title isn’t it. And the next time your team loses, it probably isn’t worth going through every game that referee has ever overseen and analysing if they have a 15% bias against your team.

Coote shouldn’t come back, not in the Premier League at least. It would not be fair on him, given the abuse and weekly accusations he would certainly suffer. And he can blame no one but himself for that. But if you’re a supporter who feels vindicated in their claims of grand conspiracy, maybe take a minute to think about that…