David Coote #

Introduction #

David Coote is an English former football referee whose career collapsed in December 2024, when the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) sacked him after leaked videos showed him making derogatory comments about Liverpool FC and their former manager Jürgen Klopp. The scandal rapidly grew beyond one leaked clip: a second video appeared to show him with white powder while on duty at Euro 2024, UEFA banned him from European officiating, and the Football Association later charged and sanctioned him over the remarks. His case became one of the most consequential referee misconduct episodes in Premier League history — a senior Select Group official removed from the elite list within weeks of the videos surfacing.

Background Information #

David Harry Coote was born on July 11, 1982, in Nottingham, England; his county FA was the Nottinghamshire Football Association, and his father played cricket for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club. He officiated his first Premier League match — Newcastle United against West Bromwich Albion — on April 28, 2018, and was promoted to Select Group 1 ahead of the 2018–19 season, placing him on the elite list of English top-flight referees. He also officiated at Euro 2024, the European Championship organized by UEFA.

By 2024 he had been overseeing Premier League matches for six seasons, a career built over more than a decade in the professional ladder. That career ended in a single autumn when two separate videos surfaced within days of each other and triggered parallel investigations by his employer, the FA, and UEFA.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

On November 11, 2024, PGMOL suspended Coote after video footage circulated on social media in which he made derogatory comments about Liverpool and described Jürgen Klopp as “arrogant” before using a vulgar term. According to Wikipedia, citing The Guardian, the video appeared to date from the 2020–21 season; in the FA’s later investigation Coote confirmed it had been filmed in his living room in 2020 alongside a friend from cricket. He initially claimed the footage was not genuine, but later admitted it was.

Two days after the first clip, a second video emerged allegedly showing Coote snorting a white powder, believed to be cocaine, while on duty at Euro 2024 — leading to his suspension by UEFA. On December 9, 2024, PGMOL terminated his employment with immediate effect, saying a thorough investigation had concluded he was “in serious breach of the provisions of his employment contract, with his position deemed untenable.” The FA was also investigating whether Coote had discussed pre-arranging a yellow card in a 2019 Leeds United match to benefit a friend’s bet — a match-fixing allegation he strenuously denied and was later cleared of.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The sacking made front-page sports news across England, with the BBC, Sky Sports, and outlets worldwide covering PGMOL’s announcement that his position had become untenable. The consequences stacked up through 2025: in February, UEFA banned Coote from officiating in European competition until June 30, 2026, over the Euro 2024 powder video; in June, the FA charged him under Rule E3.1 for improper conduct and abusive or insulting words about Klopp, with his reference to Klopp’s nationality treated as an “aggravated” breach; and in August, an independent regulatory commission imposed an eight-week suspension plus a mandatory face-to-face education programme after Coote admitted the charge.

The FA’s written reasons said Coote expressed “deep remorse” and acknowledged his comments were “crass and inappropriate.” He told investigators his words did not reflect his true feelings toward Klopp, for whom he said he had “deep professional respect,” and he apologized to Klopp personally as well as to the FA, PGMOL, and the wider football community. In January 2025, Coote came out as gay, telling The Sun that a lifelong struggle to hide his sexuality — and a drug habit he said he had overcome through therapy — had contributed to the conduct that ended his career. The claims about the powder video remain allegations in the sources reviewed; the Klopp remarks, by contrast, were admitted.

Current Status #

Coote is not currently in football. Per Wikipedia, his troubles deepened after the officiating bans: in September 2025 he was charged by Nottinghamshire Police with making an indecent image of a child; he pleaded guilty on October 14, 2025, and in January 2026 received a nine-month suspended prison sentence for possession of child abuse material. These are recent legal findings as recorded in the fetched Wikipedia article; the officiating scandal of 2024 — not the criminal case — is what ended his refereeing career.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The professional destruction was total and fast: within four weeks of the first video leaking, a Select Group 1 referee with six Premier League seasons had gone from the middle of top-flight matches to unemployment, and the subsequent UEFA ban formally locked him out of European officiating until mid-2026. In interviews cited by Sky Sports, Coote said he felt “ashamed” of the incidents that led to his sacking, and linked his conduct to the mental-health toll of hiding his sexuality during his career. The case is now cited whenever referee conduct and social-media privacy collide: a private living-room rant, filmed years earlier, ended a career the moment it went public — and the institutional fallout kept expanding for a full year afterward.