Former top ref tells Dean and Mason to call it a day
And he – like CandH – believes the time has come for him and his partner in football crime Lee Mason to call it a day.
‘I think the time is long overdue for Mike Dean and Lee Mason to step down as referees following their hapless double act when adjudicating on West Ham United’s Tomas Soucek,’ Hackett wrote in the Telegraph.
‘I would love to know the conversation that took place between the two before Soucek was shown a red card. It was clear that the contact between Soucek’s elbow and Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic was accidental.
‘Soucek had not used excessive force and/or endangered the safety of an opponent to meet the requirement for a sending off.
‘The way Mitrovic dropped to the ground as though he had been shot probably deceived Mason at Stockley Park and led him to ask Dean to watch a replay on the pitchside monitor.’
Hackett added: ‘In the case of the Soucek incident, I was shocked when two experienced referees could make such a bad decision. It is the sort of decision that makes life hard for the 27,000 referees officiating in local parks (when there is no lockdown).’
ClaretandHugh says: “This now draws a line under the scandalous decision to hand out a red card to a man who was trying to get his arm out of the way of a bloke who was giving him terrible grief. The reality is that it is Mitrovic who should have been red-carded – or at the very least yellowed – for his disgraceful behaviour which almost made Jack Grealish look like a novice at the art of deception. To be as alliterative as possible I will repeat what I said earlier: “Dean’s day is done. The entire football community including referees has come out against the man who has twice lost the plot on red cards at St Mary’s and now Craven Cottage. Both he and Lee mason should now become very firmly a part of the games past. And that’s not a reaction to what happened yesterday but to events involving the bloke over a number of years.