Premier League match official, David Coote, has made a rod for his own back after his x-rated rant against Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp was made public on social media, but that isn’t likely to see any significant changes at PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited).
Aside from offering a grovelling apology to the Reds and football clubs at large, and sacking Coote for what amounts to gross misconduct, what else exactly can Howard Webb be expected to do?
To Webb’s credit, he hasn’t shied away from controversy since taking his role at PGMOL, apologising on more than one occasion for mistakes that have been made by his officials.
David Coote has done PGMOL irreparable damage
Liverpool and other Premier League member clubs can at least be assured that he will take the matter extremely seriously and be rigorous in his investigations.
That would appear to be in stark contrast to predecessor, Mike Riley.
Keith Hackett, who preceded Riley as head of PGMOL, was scathing of the standards that his successor had allowed to manifest during his time in charge (The Guardian, subscription required).
Where Hackett and Webb appear to have ensured officials were held to account when mistakes were made, Riley seemed content to revert to statistics in order to suggest that, in fact, standards were improving amongst referees in the English top-flight.
“Keith’s entitled to his opinion, everyone has one,” he said to The Times in quotes picked up by Sky Sports back in 2015.
“But Keith’s description is not something I recognise of the organisation, the standards and what these officials achieve.
“It’s not something that the people that I engage with – the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association), LMA (League Managers Association), FA (Football Association) – recognise. None of the data bears that out.
“You always look back and think ‘wasn’t life good then’. But my view is every generation is improving on the last.
“Go back over the last five years, whether we judge the data from evaluation (by former referees) or the Premier League delegates, it all suggests year-on-year the group have improved on-field standards.”
Since the Coote furore has erupted, another video clip has been unearthed, this time of Liverpool’s Andrew Robertson asking Coote what the point was of him being in the middle during one of the Reds matches during lockdown.
There are almost certain to be others as internet sleuths look to hint at conspiracy theories in order to back up their own biases.
Regardless, this could be one issue that PGMOL will find difficult to come back from, and even Webb’s best efforts at smoothing things over aren’t likely to be enough to stop Liverpool, and potentially other clubs, pursuing every legal avenue open to them.
