TWO days after his Klopp comments went viral, The Sun revealed on November 13 Coote snorted cocaine in a video taken on July 6 while he was officiating at the Euros.
COOTE: “The drugs happened on an entirely ad-hoc basis. It fills me with a huge sense of shame to sit here and to say that I took that route.”
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COOTE said in video chats table toppers Liverpool “will not win the Premier League”.
COOTE: “I guess I’m a human being who made a mistake in a moment I now deeply regret.”
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THE ref branded the Reds defender Andy Robertson a “Scottish p****.”
COOTE: “I certainly don’t think that. Everybody who takes to the football field is full of emotion. When we’re involved in the game, things will be said that people don’t mean.
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“I’m pretty sure there’s been plenty of players or managers that have said things about me they wouldn’t sit here and say they believe. The same is true of us as match officials.”
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HE said Everton’s Goodison Park was the worst place to referee, due to the fans “shouting abuse so close to the pitch”.
COOTE: “It’s certainly not the worst place to officiate. Each ground, depending on how the result goes, can be just as difficult as any other.
“So there’s no particular ground that’s more difficult than the other because it’s all really circumstance dependent.”
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5.
COOTE said he hates officiating at Bournemouth games because it is “too far away”.
COOTE: “We’re asked to go north, south, east and west, and all over Europe.
“There’s teams of officials that have been as far as Kazakhstan to do games. I was sent to Indonesia, so distance travel is never an issue.”
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THE ref moaned he was “too big” to have to ref at Coventry’s ground for their Championship clash against Oxford Utd on August 16.
COOTE: “The Championship is a fantastic league and my experience of Coventry and all of the other games in the league have been really good ones — some of the most exciting football you’ll get to see.”
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COOTE arranged a drugs party during Tottenham’s Carabao Cup win over Manchester City on October 30.
During the interval he messaged his pal to say: “Hope you’re getting ready for me.”
COOTE: “It never happened. These kinds of messages were among the behaviours I engaged with in order to escape.
“It was almost like a different me and it’s something I really regret doing.
“Clearly now I regret entering into those conversations.
“I’ve paid the price for having them and that’s been a heavy one from a career and emotional perspective.”
8.
AT the centre of an FA betting probe after he discussed giving a yellow card to Leeds’ Ezgjan Alioski before a 2019 match against West Brom.
He messaged a pal: “I hope you backed as discussed.”
COOTE: “I can categorically say that I’ve only ever done my best when I’ve gone onto the field of play.”
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SACKED by the PGMOL.
COOTE: “I have nearly 30 years experience of refereeing and I understood the implications of the situation I found myself in and the position the PGMOL were in.”
IT’S VERY BRAVE MOVE
By AMAL FASHANU, Niece of Justin who runs foundation in his name
“IT is very brave for anyone to come out, but more so for someone in the public eye.
“This will affect David Coote and is a big step but it should have less of an effect that in would on a player. It’s not the same level of fame.”
Amal, whose former Norwich striker uncle killed himself in 1998 after becoming the first top-flight player to come out, added: “We’d love to chat to him at the foundation.
“We’d be there to offer any support and counselling.
“We also help people with mental health problems and would be there for him if that was an issue.
“There’s still something very wrong at the top of football.
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“We’re in 2025, when everyone is supposedly liberal and accepting, yet something is stopping these men accepting who they are.
“Football is still failing in this regard.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
