Sacked referee David Coote comes out as gay in stunning reveal following his interview since termination last year.
Sacked referee David Coote has made a stunning revelation by coming out as gay in his first interview since being sacked by the PGMOL.
Nottingham-born Coote admitted that ever since his sacking, he had been in a ‘dark place’ mentally.
In his first interview since the scandal, he did not challenge many of the allegations but added personal context. “I’ve had issues around my self-esteem – and that relates to my sexuality. I’m gay and I’ve struggled with feeling proud of being ‘me’ over a long period of time,” Coote told the Sun newspaper.
“I felt a deep sense of shame during my teenage years in particular. I didn’t come out to my parents until I was 21. I didn’t come out to my friends until I was 25. My sexuality isn’t the only reason that led me to be in that position. But I’m not telling an authentic story if I don’t say that I’m gay, and that I’ve had real struggles dealing with hiding that.
“I hid my emotions as a young ref and I hid my sexuality as well – a good quality as a referee but a terrible quality as a human being. And that’s led me to a whole course of behaviours.”
“I have received deeply unpleasant abuse during my career as a ref and to add my sexuality to that would have been really difficult,” he said.
The stresses of high-level refereeing only further added to the pressures, Coote said, and he would use drugs as a release. “It’s not something I was reliant on day by day, week by week, month by month,” he said.
“I’ve had long periods where I’ve not used it – but it was one of the escape routes I had. Just getting away from the stresses, the relentlessness of the job. It fills me with a huge sense of shame to say that I took that route.”
“I don’t recognise myself in the cocaine video,” Coote added, confirming the substance he was seen snorting in a video while away working at last summer’s European Championship as a VAR official.
“I can’t resonate with how I felt then, but that was me. I was struggling with the schedule and there was no opportunity to stop. And so I found myself in that position – escaping.”