The footage doesn’t look terribly clever, does it? It’s nasty and foul-mouthed, a horrible piece of video that only serves to widen the mistrust between players and officials. So yes, Andy Robertson and Jurgen Klopp should take a look at themselves.
We are talking about the other clip, of course. Or to put that a different way, the one that speaks to cause. David Coote calling Liverpool ‘s***’ and Klopp a ‘German ****’? That was effect. The reaction.
And naturally he has been punished for it with a suspension. That’s only right.
But there is another dynamic at play here, which is the provocation. So let’s put down on paper what preceded Coote’s remarks about Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Burnley in July 2020. That was Covid football, remember – empty stadiums, great for audio.
This is what was heard from Andy Robertson to Coote after the final whistle and has resurfaced on social media in the past 48 hours: ‘You didn’t see anything in the whole game apart from in the last minute,’ Robertson was picked up saying to the referee as they left the pitch. His anger was about a penalty not given.
David Coote described Jurgen Klopp as a ‘German ****’ in a foul-mouthed tirade during the video and has since been suspended by refereeing chiefs PGMOL while they investigate
Coote (left) tells the camera ‘that f***ing last video cannot go anywhere’ in the second video uploaded online while the man identified as Kitt (right) says ‘let’s not ‘f***ing ruin his career’
Coote and former Liverpool boss Klopp had several runs in with each other over the years
‘F*** me,’ Robertson added, getting more irate. ‘What’s the point of having youse in the middle? What’s the point in having you? F*** me, honestly.’
Klopp was nearby for the whole episode and he also had a few words to say. Not to calm down his man, but to join in, obviously. Quite what he contributed was not caught in full by the microphones, but we can hear one part: ‘You have to be honest.’
We can probably take a stab at how the rest of the appraisal went based on what Coote shared, in his wisdom, to his mate’s camera phone: ‘Liverpool were s***. Klopp is a ****, absolute ****. Aside from having a right pop at me when I was refereeing them against Burnley in lockdown, he accused me of lying and then had a right f***ing pop of me.
‘I have no interest in speaking to someone who is f***ing arrogant. So I do my best not to speak to him. (James) Milner is all right, I get on with him. But, my god, German ****, f*** me.’
Across the past two days, there have been conversations about his integrity. How will it look if Cootes is tasked with refereeing Liverpool again? Or Germans? Are these biases that will creep into his work? Even if there are no biases, even if he is capable of being professional in his job and limits his inner berk to the couch, how will it look? Optics, optics, will no one think of the optics?
It’s a response Coote has brought on himself by having a diabolically poor taste in friends.
But what about why he responded in the first place? Why not think about his right to a little rage, however poorly it was articulated? What about the audio we never hear, but we know goes on, when he and his colleagues are being accused of all those same things over and again by the Robertsons and Klopps of football?
We know it is near enough constant. We know the figures of influence within the game are deeply wedded to garbled conspiracies that everyone is out to get them.
The clip appears to be from years ago and the PGMOL confirmed the suspension on Monday
Evangelos Marinakis, the Nottingham Forest owner, was banned for spitting at officials
Last month, Evangelos Marinakis, the Nottingham Forest owner, was banned for spitting at officials. This being the same club whose social media account intimated Stuart Attwell was some kind of Luton Town sleeper in his deployment as VAR for Forest’s game with Everton last season. Wild.
And referees are expected to tolerate it in silence. They have to stand by and be picked apart, scrutinised, insulted, and have no apparent right to say, actually, you’re being a bit of a ****, mate. It wouldn’t be pretty, but probably not wrong the majority of times.
What Coote said will probably finish him. At the very least it could. But his prime offence was being a little too human in a role that is already being outsourced to the lab.
If any good comes from it, it could be the restructuring of such narratives and a reminder that real people are blowing the whistle. The unfortunate caveat here is this particular referee has blown off his own foot in getting the message out.