The suspension of Premier League referee David Coote brings questions of the morality of Premier League referees. After a video broke this week showing Coote using profanities to describe Jurgen Klopp and his Liverpool team, the PGMOL has refused to comment.
Human bias and human error is always going to exist no matter what, especially when it comes to sports. This is due to every person having an emotional attachment to the game, especially if they are going to pursue a career within the beautiful game this extensive. It's how referees can get things wrong or miss calls. Humans can't catch everything.
Bias is also something that is inherent and instinctive. This becomes especially telling when the referees have to make seconds quick calls that can make or break a game and perhaps even a season for teams.
This is why technology such as goal line technology was brought into football; to ensure that human error could be taken out of the game when it came down to pivotal score-changing moments in games that officials could not catch in the moment.
With more innovation and technology needed for other parts of refereeing in the game, there was the introduction of VAR into the game in 2018. Despite this being brought in as a way to eliminate bias, it has not quite done that as intended.
VAR has come with its own controversies and anguish by fans, as the technology hasn't really sorted the issue of human error. VAR has its own officials for each game and there have been things that have happened, such as the offside lines not being drawn on quickly or accurately by the officials, causing games to slow down with the game clock still running.
As well as that, it has led to objectively incorrect decisions, often in the biggest of games.
In terms of David Coote himself, Leon Bailey was allowed to get away with a denial of a goalscoring opportunity against Liverpool at the weekend, although Darwin Nunez did then run through to score for the hosts anyway.
David Coote is not the first to have a specific bias towards or against a club whether intentional or not. He certainly will not be the last either.
To eliminate bias, you need to eliminate as much of the human error and bias as possible. If VAR became as automated as the goal line technology that has always been praised and successful has been, then it could eliminate the bias that referees are constantly criticised for having especially for Coote after his comments to Liverpool and especially towards Jurgen Klopp.
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