Mike Dean admits avoiding VAR call to spare referee more grief [The Guardian]
Mike Dean admits avoiding VAR call to spare referee more grief [The Guardian]
Mike Dean has admitted he failed to correct a mistake in a Chelsea v Tottenham match last season to prevent his friend Anthony Taylor receiving extra ‘grief’
Mike Dean has admitted he failed to correct a mistake in a Chelsea v Tottenham match last season to prevent his friend Anthony Taylor receiving extra “grief”.
The former Premier League referee Dean was on VAR duty at Stamford Bridge in August 2022 when Chelsea wanted the Spurs defender Cristian Romero sent off for pulling Marc Cucurella to the floor by his hair. Dean says he made a “really bad call” in not sending Taylor to review his decision.
Why would he do that? And why on earth would he admit it later??
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And why on earth would he admit it later??
Effective journalism. Someone asked him the right question in the right way, and he wound up volunteering something he might not have otherwise chosen to say.
That said, I think some of this is just reasonable openness and accountability. Given the game was effectively a full year ago and the issues with VAR from that game are still a somewhat spicy topic, it's obviously something he's been questioned on rather a lot - and given that PGMOL also released a statement, and he mentions that he spoke to on-field ref after the game ... it seems like he's already owned that mistake professionally and personally, so making the same acknowledgement of error publicly isn't that huge a step beyond that.
It was definitely a mistake that the fans deserved an accounting of, considering it's the exact sort of problem that VAR exists to address - and that it should have been a call, of some sort at least, was absolutely undebatable to anyone who'd seen it.
He spoke about his new role before the season started in an interview with The Athletic. It's a good read to understand his mindset going into this new role, and his candle here shows he was serious about what he said.