Former Premier League referee David Coote has apologised for his actions in a tearful interview where he discusses the leaked video showing him criticising Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool.
David Coote has apologised to former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp after he called him a “German c***” in a leaked video.
In the clip, that was filmed back in 2020, Coote described Liverpool as “s***” before calling Klopp a “c***”. He said: “I have got no interest in speaking to someone who’s f****** arrogant, so I do my best not to speak to him.”
Later in the video, Coote referred to Klopp as a “German c***.” He was suspended by PGMOL as a result of the video and ultimately sacked for a “serious breach” of his contract, with a second video emerging that showed him allegedly snorting cocaine.
And Coote has now apologised for his remarks, in a tearful interview with the Sun. He said: “I want to apologise to anybody who I’ve offended by my actions. I recognise that they fell well short of standards that are expected of a top level referee and I deeply regret saying what I said.
“That video has been with somebody for more than four years. I’d forgotten it existed and I was sitting waiting for my car to be serviced and then received a call to say that it had surfaced on social media and I was devastated.
“I deeply regret that I found myself in that position. The comments are not reflective of my views of any of the individuals concerned or my wider views in general.” Klopp had previously criticised Coote after he refereed Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Burnley in 2020.
Reflecting on the situation, he added: “The difficulty with refereeing is that we have no way of expressing our emotion in the moment. We have to hide our emotions. I’d be a pretty terrible referee if I reacted emotionally to what’s being said or what’s being chanted around the ground.
“We don’t have the emotional release of scoring a goal or winning the game. I’m a human being who made a mistake in a moment that I now deeply regret.”
Coote also came out as gay in the interview and admitted to using cocaine as an “escape”. He said he was “not sober” when he made the comments about Liverpool and Klopp and that he does not “recognise” himself in the video of him using cocaine.
He added: “I’ve had issues around my self-esteem — and that relates to my sexuality. I’m gay and I’ve struggled with feeling proud of being ‘me’ over a long period of time.
“I have received deeply unpleasant abuse during my career as a ref and to add my sexuality to that would have been really difficult. There’s a lot to be done throughout football and more widely in society with regard to discrimination.
“I didn’t want to be that person that was putting their head above the parapet to be shot at, given the abuse we all get as a referee in any event.”
