David Coote has issued an apology to former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp after a controversial video of him calling Klopp a “German c***” surfaced online. The video, filmed in 2020, also included derogatory remarks about Liverpool, with Coote referring to the club as “s***” and criticizing Klopp’s attitude.
In the video, Coote expressed a lack of interest in communicating with Klopp, saying, “I have got no interest in speaking to someone who’s f****** arrogant, so I do my best not to speak to him.” Later, Coote called Klopp a “German c***.” Following the video’s release, Coote was suspended by the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) and ultimately dismissed for a “serious breach” of his contract. A second video also emerged, showing Coote allegedly using cocaine.
In an emotional interview with The Sun newspaper, Coote tearfully apologized for his actions. 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.” He explained that the video had been with someone for over four years, and he had forgotten about it until it surfaced on social media. “I was devastated,” he admitted. “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.”
Coote also reflected on the difficulties of refereeing, explaining: “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.” He acknowledged that the comments were a mistake, adding, “I’m a human being who made a mistake in a moment that I now deeply regret.”
Coote also came out as gay during the interview, explaining his struggles with self-esteem: “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.” He said that he had received “deeply unpleasant abuse” throughout his career and added, “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.”
He admitted that he was “not sober” when making the comments about Liverpool and Klopp, and said he did not “recognise” himself in the video of him using cocaine. “There’s a lot to be done throughout football and more widely in society with regard to discrimination,” he added.
