What a helmet.
At least, now, we know why he's such a poor referee. It's really an interesting case because - I think - it goes much beyond the football sphere. It seems Western societies have become so passive that a number of people daily push the envelope further and further, just to see if there's going to be a reaction. These people are goading you into doing something about it but nothing happens. In that, Dean is no different from Infantino, Trump or any other wind-up merchant.
People (Spurs fans in particular last season) have been asking some serious questions about refereeing and instead of answering these questions, the Mike Deans of this world just keep adding fuel to the fire. It says a lot about the kind of societies we live in: people make infuriated comments in front of a screen (myself included) but they don't have the time or energy to actually make it change. It's a vicious circle that we can't get out of at the moment.
We'll see what happens, but I doubt it will lead to any real change. The media will dismiss it as a former referee trying to gloat his way into relevance or something like that.
I think what @revlis and @Mr Gogolak post really plays into the PGMOL process of screening, monitoring and promoting referees to the elite level not working at all. They have a database of 600 or so officials up and down the country and if the process is working then we would clearly see the best referees bubble to the surface and get into the Select Group. They would resemble more what @revlis write above if the process was working correctly.
Instead, you end up with self promoting gobbricks like Mike Dean who was clearly only in it to get noticed as a referee with another agenda to forge a subsequent career in media. Then to @Mr Gogolak 's point you have the societal challenge that it seems to be OK that we tolerate these idiots and even add fuel to their fire and encourage them.
Put these guys in an organisation who think they are untouchable and you see the mess we're in under Howard Webb. I reckon PGMOL is probably up there as the worst set of referee's in world football. I bet they earn the most as well.
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