English former referee David Coote has been given a suspended sentenced of nine months in prison after pleading guilty to having an indecent image of a child.
Coote, a former Premier League referee between 2018 and 2024, that also worked with FIFA between 2020 and 2022, was suspended by the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) in November 2024 after a video where he talked Disrespectfully about then Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp.
Coote was also suspect of match fixing, and another video was found where he seemingly snorted cocaine. He was fired from the Football Association in December 2024 and later banned from UEFA in February 2025.
Those previous allegations led to the discovery of the video in his laptop when police searched his house in February 2025. The police found an indecent video with a 15-year-old boy. Coote pleased guilty of the crime of 'making an indecent image of a child', which legally speaking refers to activities such as downloading, sharing or saving photos or videos containing abuse.
"You had been filmed making comments about the then Liverpool Football Club manager. The present allegations are unrelated to that but they did lead to the police coming to your home in February last year", the Judge Nirmal Shant said today (via BBC). She said that he had "a spectacular fall from grace", and reminded him that the starting point for such an offence is one year imprisonment, with the range between 26 weeks and three years.
Coote will not go to prison unless he makes another offence in the next two years, but will have to carry 150 hours of community work and given a sexual harm prevention order lasting 10 years.