UEFA Gives Ref Who Trashed Liverpool, Snorted Cocaine 16-Month Ban

UEFA has banned scandal-laden former Premier League referee David Coote for bringing “the sport of football, and UEFA in particular, into disrepute.”

Coote came under fire in November after leaked videos where he called former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp a “German c**t” and said “Liverpool were shit” in a match he officiated. The Professional Game Match Officials Limited, or PGMOL, which oversees officials in England, suspended Coote while launching an investigation.

Then, another video showed Coote snorting cocaine while allegedly at a UEFA hotel the day after working as support VAR for a quarterfinal match at the 2024 Euros. In December, PGMOL fired Coote following an investigation. Coote hasn’t refereed a Premier League game since Nov. 9.

The UEFA investigation centered on the Euros video, though the European governing body had also withdrawn Coote from working some games after the Liverpool videos. Now, UEFA says Coote, 42, had “violated the basic rules of decent conduct.” He won’t be able to call a UEFA match—such as a Champions League, Europa, Conference League, Nations League, or Euros game—until June 30, 2026. That date falls in the middle of the upcoming men’s World Cup to be held in the United States. Coote was a FIFA referee between 2020 and 2022.

Last month, Coote gave an interview to The Sun where he came out as gay, said he struggled with hiding his sexuality and an overwhelming match schedule, and admitted he used cocaine as an escape. “I don’t recognize myself in the cocaine video,” he said, adding that he was “not sober” in the Klopp videos either.

Coote is also under investigation by the FA related to a 2019 alleged incident in which he talked with a fan online about distributing a yellow card ahead of a match so the fan could bet on it. Coote denies the allegations and said he “received nothing for it.”

“Whatever issues I may have had in my personal life they have never affected my decision-making on the field,” Coote said in a statement. “I have always held the integrity of the game in the highest regard, refereeing matches impartially and to the best of my ability.”