Mike Dean believes the fallout from him describing the referee Anthony Taylor as a “mate” after he failed to correct a mistake in a Chelsea v Tottenham game has been “blown out of context”.
The former Premier League referee was on VAR duty in August 2022 when Chelsea wanted the Spurs defender Cristian Romero sent off for pulling Marc Cucurella to the floor by his hair.
Dean says he made a “really bad call” in not sending Taylor to review his decision. Harry Kane equalised for Spurs from the following stoppage-time corner and a feisty encounter finished 2-2. Both the clubs’ then managers – Chelsea’s Thomas Tuchel and Tottenham’s Antonio Conte – received red cards from Taylor after an angry exchange at the end of the match.
“I missed the stupid hair pull at Chelsea versus Tottenham, which was pathetic from my point of view,” Dean told Simon Jordan’s Up Front podcast. “I didn’t want to send him [Taylor] up because he is a mate as well as a referee, and I think I didn’t want to send him up because I didn’t want any more grief than he already had.”
Asked about his podcast comments, Dean told Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday: “It has all been blown out of context. Referring to him [Taylor] as a mate, you have got to look at it in context. You might not like some guys in your refereeing group, but when you get a game on the weekend, there are four of you in the middle, a VAR and an AVR. Those six people are your mates for the day. The mate thing has been blown all out of proportion.
after newsletter promotion
“I want to support the referee as much as I can, and that’s what you do as a VAR. Yes, I was wrong and I should have sent him to the screen, but to say I didn’t send him over because he was a mate is an absolute farce and it’s just been blown all out of proportion.
“It was wrong, and I paid the price. I didn’t have a game for three weeks after that. The buck stops with me. He’s not my best mate, we are just mates on the day. When you go out as a team of six, you want to look after your mate in the middle. That’s what you do.
“Anthony shouldn’t get any grief, it’s me that should get the grief, and I have had the grief. I got the grief when it first happened 15 months ago. It’s my fault. I apologised last year to the whole group.”
The Wirral-born Dean started his career as a top-flight referee in 2000 and went on to take charge of 553 Premier League matches. He retired from refereeing at the end of the 2021-22 campaign and became a dedicated Premier League VAR last season. But he was stood down from VAR duty for two months after the Stamford Bridge incident and admitted the role was something he ended up dreading.