Former Premier League referee David Coote has been given an eight-week suspension and told to attend an education programme over abusive words he used about former Liverpool head coach Jürgen Klopp.
Coote was charged by the Football Association in June after the comments about Klopp came to light in a video circulated on social media last November. The FA said he had subsequently admitted the charge.
Coote’s misconduct was defined as an aggravated breach under the FA’s rules because there was a reference to Klopp’s nationality.
Coote was sacked by Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) last December, a month after the video filmed in July 2020 came to light.
PGMOL said in confirming Coote’s dismissal last December that his position had become “untenable.”
In it, Coote is heard saying it had been “s—” to be fourth official at a Liverpool match in the summer of 2020, describing Klopp as a “German c—“. He also said Klopp was “f—— arrogant.”
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When the FA charged him over the Klopp comments in June, the governing body said Coote would face no further action in regard to separate allegations of gambling misconduct, which he had strenuously denied. The FA said those allegations had been fully investigated.
Coote was banned by European football’s governing body UEFA in February until June 30, 2026 after a different video emerged of him snorting a white powder through a bank note while in Germany for last summer’s Euros.
In January, Coote came out as gay in an interview with the Sun and said that a lifelong struggle to hide his sexuality had contributed to the rant about Klopp, and to his drug use.
“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 with hiding that,” he said.
“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.”
Coote’s formal response to the FA charge was detailed in the regulatory commission’s written reasons which were published alongside the confirmation of the sanctions imposed.
He accepted his words about Klopp were “crass, inappropriate and unworthy of the role that he held within the game” and asked the commission to accept that his decision not to attend the hearing was not made out of avoidance, but due to his mental state.
Coote said the words did not respect his true view of Klopp, for whom he had always had a deep professional respect.
The panel wrote: “DC [Coote] stated that he felt an immense sense of shame. He had lost a career that formed the very core of his identity. He had lost all his income and the media attention had deepened his sense of humiliation and despair.
“He was trying to piece his life back together, from a place of near total collapse.”
