Premier League referee Mike Dean has reportedly had threats against his life sent to his family following the 0-0 draw between Fulham and West Ham this weekend reports the Daily Mirror.
Dean has also asked to not be involved in a Premier League match next weekend, report The Times.
And The Athletic reports the 52 year old contacted the police after the police after his family received a number of threats, death threats and abusive messages.
Dean will still take charge of Wednesday night’s game between Leicester and Brighton in the FA Cup but has requested not to be included in the list of referees for this coming weekend’s Premier League games.
He has not been pulled off the list of games, as no referees have yet been assigned to matches for the weekend.
Meanwhile Mike Riley, the general manager of Professional Games Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) said: “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.
“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.”
Dean was universally criticised for showing a red card to Tomas Soucek late on in the game at Craven Cottage on Saturday.
The Czech midfielder made very light contact with Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic with his elbow, and after it was flagged by Lee Mason on VAR Dean consulted the pitchside monitor before giving Soucek his marching orders.
In the last hour the FA independent panel overruled Dean’s decision meaning they accept the referee made a clear and obvious error leaving Soucek to play on Tuesday night in the FA Cup.
I just cannot understand why anyone would bring his family into the berating, whatever happened has absolutely nothing to do with them.
Death threats! Even saying something like in jest is taking things way too far, whatever punishment meted out to the perpetrators will be warranted.
Let’s just hope that the odious Bobby Madley isn’t reinstated to PL duty if indeed Dean does call it a day come season end.
Find those responsible for the threats and charge them.
2 overturned red cards in 2 games shows its time for Dean to retire. Plus it hardly shows var in a good light!
Well to be honest he did rather bring the abuse upon himself . But apart from that the FA concluded correctly that the ref was totally wrong . Good for our football and another very pointed attack on the current VAR system . Maybe he needs investigating for backhanders .
Totally agree, death threats are totally unacceptable.
It was a very poor decision by both Mason & Dean, and rightly the football world has condemned the decision as wrong and poor.
What amazes me though, is all the commentators and ex pro pundits have not come down and condemned the catalyst for all this, Mitrovic, if the supposed big man had not thrown himself to the floor clutching his face like he had been headbutted and then laid there prone on the floor, none of this would have happened. He then pathetically tells Dean it was an accident when he realised it had got out of hand in attempt to exonerate himself from the issue, these are the cheats that need dealing with.
Death threats and abuse are not acceptable under any conditions. period.
IT does, however, re-open the question of refereeing standards. Up until the red card, Dean was having a good game; hardly noticed him, but then it all went wrong; AND Lee Mason should take a big part in that. If he had just seen what we all did, the game would have finished and all would be well. I did read a comment about the MLS using retired officials… not a bad idea at all. Finally, was a little aghast to read that Dean is 52 years old!!! Goodness me, put a cap on it of 45 at least