Mike Dean has admitted he avoided sending Anthony Taylor to investigate a mistake in a match to prevent his ‘mate’ from experiencing further ‘heartbreak’.
The former Premier League referee was the VAR official when Cristian Romero pulled Marc Cucurella’s hair before Harry Kane equalized in the 96th minute as Spurs drew 2-2 at Chelsea in April 2022. Romero went unpunished.
Chelsea had previously been upset when Rodrigo Bentancur fouled Kai Havertz, but Taylor deemed it a fair challenge.
Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte were booked after a one-on-one altercation and then sent off after Kane’s final equalizer for coming to blows as tempers flared.
“I missed the stupid hair tug at Chelsea against Tottenham which was pathetic from my point of view,” Dean told Simon Jordan. In the front podcast.
Mike Dean has spoken about his attempt to protect Anthony Taylor from abuse in the Chelsea-Spurs game last year, as well as the abuse and fitness tests referees have to undergo.
Cristian Romero (centre) pulled Marc Cucurella’s hair moments before Spurs equalized late in stoppage time but nothing was given by the referee or VAR.
“That’s one of them where if I had my time again, what would I do? I would send Anthony (Taylor) to the screen. I think I knew if I sent him to the screen. screen… he warned both managers, he had a hell of a game, it was such a tough game from start to finish.
“I said to Anthony afterwards, ‘I just didn’t want to send you on screen after what happened in the game.’
“I didn’t want to send him off because he’s both a mate and a referee and I think I didn’t want to send him off because I didn’t want any more heartbreak than he already had. “
As well as opening up about the mistake, Dean spoke about the emotional impact refereeing had on him and the terror he would feel at the thought of being hounded for mistakes.
“It was a major mistake. If they don’t score from a corner, it’s not that big of a problem. But I knew very well that I would be resigning the following week. I asked to take some time off because it wasn’t for me,” he said.
“I used to get in the car on Fridays and dreaded Saturdays. I thought, “I hope nothing will happen. I was petrified sitting in the chair.
Dean was later removed from his VAR duties for two months and has now stepped away from refereeing.
The PGMOL released a statement on Friday following Dean’s comments which read: “VARs undergo extensive training entirely focused on working effectively with the team of on-field officials to rectify clear and obvious errors (relating to goals, penalties, red cards and red cards). mistaken identity).
“When the VARs identify a clear and obvious error by the refereeing team on the pitch, they should intervene and recommend a review by the referee. We strongly refute any suggestion that the VARs do not intervene, for whatever reason, when they have identified a clear and obvious error.
The last line of this statement refers to the refereeing corps refuting the idea that VARs do not intervene when there is a clear and obvious error that needs to be corrected, because they insist that what happened spent at Chelsea against Tottenham was an isolated incident and not representative of their approach.
Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte were booked and then expelled from their heated arguments
Kane headed the last-minute equalizer in a rowdy game at Stamford Bridge
Anthony Taylor, above, was not sent to look into the incident by VAR manager Dean as he did not want Taylor to suffer further abuse.
The former official also spoke about the qualities required to become a referee. He referred to the need to have “thick skin, some kind of personality, you have to have a bit of authority over yourself, you have to have a bit of arrogance about yourself”.
Mixed with character traits, a key element is physical fitness.
Referees are put through rigorous testing to ensure they can keep pace with football at the highest level: dealing with counter-attacks, withstanding the demands of matches that now last over 100 minutes and take hundreds of decisions in a fraction of a second.
After the end of the season, he explained that the referees would be given three weeks off before embarking on an eight-week preparation plan for the new campaign.
He said: “We have an eight-week plan that Simon, the fitness specialist, sends us, which we have to follow, upload with your heart rate monitors, your GPS units, just to make sure you’re getting the job done. correctly.
“There are criteria for passing the fitness test in July on the running track. You do 75 meters in 15 seconds, then you have to walk 25 meters in 15 seconds, and repeat that 20 times, which is quite hard, and the older you get, it gets harder and harder!
“Then you also have sprints, which is six 40-meter sprints in 5.9 seconds with a minute of recovery between each sprint.”
All referees take the same fitness test, regardless of age – which Dean questioned.
Following Dean’s claims
Dean spoke to Simon Jordan about the rigorous fitness tests referees have to go through – and wondered if officials of all ages should do the same.
“The older you get, the more difficult it becomes.
“If you’re a really good umpire at 52 and you sprint a 6.0 and you run a 15.2 and you fail, is that a good thing to do because you could be the best umpire in the world and miss by 0.2 of a second?
“I understand, there are criteria. There are also criteria with body fat, so (compared to) when I finished (the season) in 2022, for the start of this 2023/24 season, everyone’s body fat had to be 16% or less, which was difficult.
“When I referee it was probably 17.5-18%, it’s not a lot, but I think now when you look at UEFA referees when they referee European games, it’s very rare that you see a referee now who is on the larger side.
“They’re pretty thin and doing UEFA stuff. UEFA have the same kind of fitness testing levels, especially the guys in the elite group like Anthony (Taylor) and Michael (Oliver), they have to go to Geneva twice a year, go through full fitness activities, exactly the same protocol as us: their fat mass must be low, if not, they do not have access to games , It’s as simple as that.
Earlier this week, Mail Sport revealed referee bosses had sent Premier League clubs a list of food requests for their match officials – with sandwiches on the menu.
Senior officials have been told that while rice cakes, nut butter and fishcakes are all the rage, humble butty are banned, as are “fatty foods”.
