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Interesting 'exclusive interview' with the same paper that published the various stories on him after the video was circulated on social media.
Obviously his refereeing career is over. I'm also not sure how relevant his sexuality is for the reason of his actions (But don't doubt it was difficult in that envrioment). But it does highlight some huge issues on how referees are treated, stories of him receiving death threats and people wishing he was paralysed really shouldn't be the outcome of a decision he made at the weekend.
I have no idea how the PGMOL do anything to improve that?
He'll rightly never referee in the english game again as his integrity here is gone. But hopefully a opportunity opens up abroad so he can have a second chance.
I am aware homophobia exists, I am aware referees get abused. I am not excusing that or pretending it doesn't exist, but in the context of Coote, it's not what we care about, not one jot. This is a distraction tactic.
The issue is that this guy has admitted on camera costing a team points because he didn't like their manager. He was also allegedly using drugs. He didn't do that based on any homophobic abuse he may have (or not have) received by people knowing he was gay, he did that because he was someone well below the standards expected of a professional referee in this country. Being gay is irrelevant to that, and a distraction tactic from the bigger issue, we often question referees' decisions and we have seen some strange ones ourselves every week. So what is going on? Just look at the diving from Arsenal against us, or Brighton wiping out our keeper and us getting squat for it. Something is not right.
I believe Coote was involved with the decision to award a penalty against us for City at a crucial time in the game, and then involved with the decision to deny us one with almost an identical foul not long after that. I may be wrong here, but I seem to recall that was the case.
For our club, and our investors, these petty, unprofessional decisions could cost us millions and it's something the smaller clubs right across the EPL and EFL need to start challenging.
Even going back to our last top-flight relegation, when Ruud Van Nilsteroy decided to make the most obvious dive we ever saw at Portman Road when we were playing them on pretty equal footing, to get a penalty, a goal and we lost a vital 1/3 points in a relegation battle that costs us millions and consigned us to 24 years in the EFL.
It's one rule for them, another for us.
"For our club, and our investors, these petty, unprofessional decisions could cost us millions and it's something the smaller clubs right across the EPL and EFL need to start challenging."
Completely futile debate. The bigger clubs would also lose out on millions if they suddenly weren't getting decisions go their way. Someone is always going to be on the end of a poor or borderline decision, people need to get over it, and also stop demanding consistency when it doesn't exist and realistically never will.
To frame the Joao Pedro incident as some kind of evidence of conspiracy, or even a wildly bad decision, or a bad decision full stop, really doesn't help. There were arguments for a red card for that, but on the whole it was a run of the mill refereeing decision that could have gone either way - I doubt many neutral fans saw that on MOTD and offered much more than a shrug of the shoulders.
Same with the Lewis-Skelley one. Yes, a decision like that is rare, but if people are actually willing to think about it, it was a perfectly rational call to send him off. There's a strong argument for such blatant cynical fouls like that to be punished with a red card every time. Add in the fact it's studs onto an ankle, and I don't think he can argue that much.
Half the problem our sport has is with the people watching, not the people officiating.
It wouldn't surprise me if The Sun pulled the same trick they did with the late Stephen Gateley of Boyzone - "We're going to run the story that you're gay whether you like it or not. You can either give us an exclusive interview and we can paint you in a sympathetic light, or we'll run a negative story about it, and trash your reputation.
Of course the drawback with that theory is that Coote's reputation is in the dirt anyway.
Indeed, classic tabloid nastiness. “Give us the exclusive or we’ll out you.” Altho it’s 2025 does anyone even care?
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