00:00Welcome back to the Premier League panel. Now, it's been a pretty bad week for top
00:08flight referees in England, with a video emerging which purportedly shows Premier League referee
00:13David Coote using some choice language to describe Liverpool, and in particular, former
00:17manager Jürgen Klopp. Coote's been suspended pending an investigation. Jason, I think we
00:22can all agree, if the video is genuine, then he probably wasn't very clever to allow himself
00:26to be filmed making such comments. But is there any part of you that has a little bit
00:30of sympathy for his thoughts, particularly on Klopp? Because to my mind, the way that
00:34officials, particularly fourth officials, are treated to get spoken to by a lot of managers
00:39can be pretty shocking at times.
00:41Yeah, I think, I mean, first and foremost, what is he doing? You know, I think we can
00:49all agree, what are you doing? Allowing yourself to be filmed saying those things is just absolutely
00:56ludicrous and unprofessional to the nth degree. And I agree with you on the point
01:01that I think that some of the hesitators say abuse, but the excessive criticism that officials
01:10come in for is, yeah, completely out of line. I think that we almost have a tendency to
01:15forget that they are people with emotions and feelings. And that, you know, they are
01:21inevitably going to have lines that, when crossed, are going to lead to express frustrations,
01:27however unadvisable that might be. The one thing I would say, where I do sort of have
01:33some sympathy for him, is that, look, everybody works with people. Sometimes you're going
01:41to work with people who you don't get on with, who you don't particularly care for.
01:45Is there a comment on anyone in this call, Jason?
01:48I'm not naming any names, Matthew. I'm not naming any names. But genuinely though, like,
01:53you know, in a workplace environment, and that's ultimately where he comes across someone
01:59like a Jurgen Klopp, you're not always going to be best buddies with everybody. You're
02:02going to have people who you clash with. You're going to have personalities that don't quite
02:06click with yours. And you're going to have people who you actually think are just a bit
02:09rotten. That's going to happen. The big question here is, does it, or has it in the past, affected
02:18his ability to be professional? Has it negatively impacted the way that he has officiated Liverpool
02:23matches? That is a different question. He is allowed to dislike Jurgen Klopp. He's allowed
02:29to have any opinion of anybody that he wants. I probably shouldn't express them, but what
02:33appears to be an afters at seven in the morning on someone's couch, but whatever. But that
02:39being said, as long as it doesn't impact the way that he does his job, the way that he
02:43conducts himself, then it's kind of a non issue. Like, obviously he's going to be dragged
02:49across the course of this. Obviously he's probably going to serve some sort of suspension
02:52if it does turn out to be real. I've seen people on the internet talking about deep
02:56fakes. I feel, you know, if you had that technology at your fingertips is the first person you'd
03:00go after is David Coutt. I'm not too sure, but anyway. But it does come down to that,
03:07you know, like if he's doing his job properly, he's allowed to dislike people. He's going
03:11to be suspended, potentially banned, all of those sorts of things, kind of understandably
03:16so. But I really do think that it's, it's maybe being made out to be a much, much bigger
03:21issue than it actually is.
03:23Oh, what are your thoughts, Mark? Because is there any way to make the relationship
03:28between referees and managers and players and so on less antagonistic? Because it is
03:33creating problems like this. And as Jason said, I mean, it can potentially could cause
03:37an issue with making, you know, referees, you know, unconsciously biased in the decisions
03:42they're making if they do have an issue with the players or managers they're working with.
03:45And I think, you know, almost all of us would find ourselves struggling to be as even handed
03:51as we'd like if we were busy getting, having someone screaming in our face every five minutes,
03:55you know, I mean, do you think there is a way to sort this out basically to tone the
03:59situation down?
04:01Just communication. Just got to talk more and talk sensibly and have adult conversations
04:05rather than having managers talk down to referees or, and I've got to be honest, this works
04:10two ways, by the way, because I've seen referees and we could name referees on here if we wanted
04:15to, we won't, but we could, who consistently talk down to, to players, to managers, to
04:20assistants, to anyone. So I just feel it's, it's time for everyone involved in the game
04:26to have, you know, adult conversations and grown up conversations about where we're going
04:31here with this relationship. Look, let's be honest. And I'll bring this down to grassroots.
04:36We couldn't have the game without referees, without officials. So there has to be a degree
04:39of respect, but this goes all the way to grassroots. Again, respect has to work both ways. What
04:45I will say on Coop himself, two things really, one, it's incredibly naive what he's done.
04:51Incredibly naive. And secondly, it's quite unfortunate that he and other officials, I
04:58guess, that have been caught out in the past with maybe not stuff like this, but certainly
05:02wearing football tops of certain clubs and stuff like that. They're almost doing it like
05:07Union stands at Trammere. It's also, it's that element of that. They can't trust anyone.
05:16And that's quite sad to work in an environment where you can't trust anyone, even, you know,
05:21whoever this is with Kuda, if it is a friend, then that's even more unfortunate. But I just
05:26think, yeah, going back to the original question, it really is a case of everyone sitting down
05:31and talking about it properly, working through issues properly. It's maybe highlighted something
05:38a bit more deep rooted within the game, within the relationship between officials and everyone
05:42else.
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