Disgraced Premier League referee David Coote has come out as gay and says he took cocaine to ‘escape’ the ‘stresses and relentlessness of the job’. There goes his big Saudi move, I suppose?
Coote has now given an interview to The Sun (he really does hate Scousers, doesn’t he?) in which he reveals he’s gay, has self-esteem issues, was devastated about being sacked, and basically just trying to get everyone to feel sorry for him even though none of that he anything to do with him badmouthing Liverpool on camera or making shocking decisions on the pitch as a referee:
[Cocaine] is not something I was reliant on day by day, week by week, month by month.
‘I’ve had long periods where I’ve not used it — but it was one of the escape routes I had.
‘Just getting away from the stresses, the relentlessness of the job. It fills me with a huge sense of shame to say that I took that route.
‘I don’t recognise myself in the cocaine video. I can’t resonate with how I felt then, but that was me.
‘I was struggling with the schedule and there was no opportunity to stop. And so I found myself in that position – escaping.’
On being gay:
‘I didn’t come out to my parents until I was 21. I didn’t come out to my friends until I was 25,’ he said.
‘My sexuality isn’t the only reason that led me to be in that position. But I’m not telling an authentic story if I don’t say that I’m gay, and that I’ve had real struggles dealing with hiding that.
‘I hid my emotions as a young ref and I hid my sexuality as well – a good quality as a referee but a terrible quality as a human being. And that’s led me to a whole course of behaviours.
‘I put on this hard exterior. Football became a place where I could go and referee and be engrossed in the game.
‘But then I’d come home and it would be more difficult because I’m living a double sense of being.
‘To other people who are in my situation, I’d say seek help and talk to somebody because if you bottle it up like I have done it has to come out in some way.’
On being abused by football fans:
‘I have received deeply unpleasant abuse during my career as a ref and to add my sexuality to that would have been really difficult.
‘There’s a lot to be done throughout football and more widely in society with regard to discrimination.
‘I didn’t want to be that person that was putting their head above the parapet to be shot at, given the abuse we all get as a referee in any event.
‘I’m a human being who made a mistake in a moment that I now deeply regret.’
With the PGMOL involved in more drama this week following a scandalous red card for Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly on the weekend, and their statement condemning the abuse of referee Michael Oliver, it’s interesting timing for this David Coote interview to be released. It seriously seems like the PGMOL are trying to change the narrative to one about the abuse received by referees, rather than the incompetent decisions they keep making on the pitch.
Obviously it’s not right to send abuse to David Coote or Michael Oliver or any other referee who’s terrible at their job, but that’s what happens when football fans feel like they aren’t being listened to, and the PGMOL refuses to do anything about the very blatant issues within its organisation.
Anyway, fair play to David Coote for taking the Phillip Schofield approach. Let’s see how it pans out.
For the Mexican referee who got so fed up with a player he knee’d him in the balls while showing him a yellow card, click HERE.
