We suddenly know an awful lot more about Mark Clattenburg than we could have ever imagined.
One revealing appearance on a podcast has let us know that the former Premier League referee was absolutely petrified of Roy Keane and went into the infamous Chelsea vs. Spurs clash at Stamford Bridge last year with a “gameplan”.
Clattenburg stepped away from the Premier League last season to take up a position as Saudi Arabia’s Head of Refereeing and he’s not been afraid to reveal the reason he decided that he’d had enough of England’s top flight.
Apparently, it all came down to a bollocking from Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho during a game between the Red Devils and Stoke in January…
“I was refereeing the game when Wayne Rooney broke Bobby Charlton’s record and Mourinho came into my dressing room and he was unhappy about a handball penalty that I didn’t give,” Clattenburg said on the Men in Blazers podcast.
“I’d walked off that pitch at Stoke, which was always the coldest stadium, it was always wet and miserable, and refereeing Man United was never an easy match,” Clatternburg added.
“To come off that match it felt immense that I’d actually had a good performance, and for him to come into my dressing room and criticise my performance for a handball that I’d seen, that had clearly come off his chest, I knew that I was right but he’d put a seed of doubt into my mind.
“I drove home 250 miles thinking I’d made a big error. My wife knew my attitude had changed, and I thought to myself, ‘Do I really want to be a part of this anymore? Do I really want to referee?’
“And I went soul-searching, I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I used to and I had to get out.”
Out he got and he ended up in a lucrative job with the regular stresses of displeasing multi-million pound footballers, their managers and legions of fans.
