The first question many had was: is it real?
Surely a Premier League referee couldn’t possibly be on camera calling Jurgen Klopp a “c**t” and criticising Liverpool.
That it possibly wasn’t a genuine video would not have been a consideration even maybe two years ago. Now, nobody knows what to believe, what’s real and what’s fake.
Within this uncertain but fertile imaginative ground, conspiracy theories have thrived and bred legions of followers.
As soon as the David Coote video went viral, Liverpool fans began scouring past matches and reports to find the controversial decisions he had been involved with that went against their club.
There was the time Jordan Pickford almost took Virgil van Dijk’s leg off and it wasn’t deemed a foul. The time the ball struck Martin Odegaard’s hand against Arsenal that wasn’t deemed a penalty. The time he didn’t give a foul against Divock Origi before Manchester United went on to score. He was the VAR in these, not the referee with the final call.
Little traction was gained by the fact that in the past 12 months Coote has been the referee for three Liverpool games, against Aston Villa, Brighton and Fulham, and they have won all of them.
But then why spoil a good yarn?
“How much did Howard Webb know?” was another one. As though the head of the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOL) had been aware for years of the existence of a smartphone video of one of his referees engaged in what appears to be a late-night, intoxicated chat and had covered it up to allow him to continue officiating Liverpool games.
The only thing Coote is guilty of is being human. Humans make mistakes. Humans get angry when people provoke them. Humans harbour grudges.
His gravest error is letting somebody stick a recording device in his face and start venting. The words, “Just to be clear, that f**king last video can’t go anywhere”, said in the second, shorter, video, will haunt him forever.
Klopp could be horrible to people, routinely. He was horrible to officials, he was horrible to certain journalists. In Simon Hughes’s new book, Chasing Salah, it is revealed that he would scream at players to the point they were afraid of saying what they really felt about him.
To those crying about integrity and honesty, I hate to break it to you but of course officials will hide internal grievances and resentment towards managers who treat them horrendously.
To conspiracy theory-addled friends who claim referees are out to stop Liverpool winning the title, and the decisions against them are proof of it, I have privately pointed out that Klopp’s behaviour towards officials will inevitably lead to some subconscious bias. It’s human nature.
Because of what Coote has allowed to happen, however inadvertent it may have been, he can surely never referee a Liverpool match again. Or one which can have some material impact on Liverpool’s fortunes. The pickings will be slim. And if he does it will only further chip away at trust in officials that has been eroded by years of speculation and fantasy that only increased after the introduction of VAR.
The fact he brought nationality into it, by calling Klopp a “German c**t”, is clearly problematic and must be dealt with.
Coote will probably be alright. The most lucrative next career step could be officiating in the Saudi Pro League – no doubt spawning new and entirely fictitious theories about being in the pocket of Premier League club owners all along.
But the damage he has done in the never-ending battle against the ever-growing army of conspiracy theorists in the fiercest frontier of English football’s eternal culture war is irrevocable.
Those shadows of suspicion that forever trail Michael Oliver, after he refereed a game in the UAE, whose vice-president owns Manchester City, will darken and grow. When, in reality, Oliver was paid a couple of grand for a job he was perfectly entitled to do before the rules were changed.
The next time a referee makes a big, controversial call that goes against your club – for there will always be a next time – or the VAR intervenes in a way you disagree with, there will always be those who say: what about Coote?
Look at what he said about Klopp and Liverpool and look at those decisions that went against them and look at how two-plus-two equals hundreds of tangents and permutations.
Yet in a world where everyone has a video camera in their pocket, it’s probably testament to referees that this is the first time a video has made it out there. On the evidence we have, this is an isolated incident, and a 74-second video isn’t reflective of the entirety of English refereeing.
Since Webb has taken over the PGMOL is more transparent than it ever was, with the addition of independent panels assessing officials, the publication this season of the appointment policy, the release of VAR audios at the request of clubs and a monthly show devoted to Webb discussing decisions.
There are good young referees coming through and if we let this be the match that burns the building down, they will, quite rightly, flee. Until, eventually, there’s no-one left.
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