Premier league referee Mike Dean receives death threats following dubious red card decisions

Premier league referee Mike Dean receives death threats following dubious red card decisions
Mike Dean red carded Soucek, the decision was overturned by the FA following an appeal from West Ham

Mike Dean has reported receiving death threats through the social media accounts of his family members to the police. Dean had produced two red cards in his last two games, but both were overturned by the FA.  

West Ham’s Thomas Soucek received a red card in the 97th minute of the match for elbowing Mitrovic. He took his decision after looking at the pitch-side monitor following VAR intervention.

Mike Dean will not be refereeing in the league this weekend

Mike Dean is one of the most experienced referees in English football

West Ham boss, David Moyes said he was “disappointed with football in general” after the incident involving Soucek.

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Dean also issued a red card for Southampton in their 9-0 thrashing against Manchester United. He sent off Southampton defender Bednarek for a challenge on Anthony Martial after which Southampton started to lose the plot.

Mike Dean will be in charge of the 5th round FA Cup tie involving Leicester and Brighton on Wednesday night. However, he has asked to be excused of his refereeing duties in the league following the threats he received online.

The PGMOL’s managing director, Mike Riley, offered the organisation’s full support to Dean and condemned the abuse.

“Threats and abuse of this nature are totally unacceptable and we fully support Mike’s decision to report these messages his family received to the police,” Riley said. “Nobody should be victim of abhorrent messages like this.

“Online abuse is unacceptable in any walk of life and more needs to be done to tackle the problem.”

While referees can sometimes take the wrong decisions on the pitch such kind of behavior is simply not acceptable. Referees are also human and people should understand that they can make mistakes too. Football fans can criticize them for being wrong but death threats and abuse should not be encouraged at any cost.

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