Former Premier League referee David Coote gets suspended sentence

Former Premier League referee David Coote has been sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court to nine months in prison suspended for two years after a sexual video of a 15-year-old schoolboy was found on his laptop.

Sentencing, Judge Shant told Coote, "you have had a spectacular fall from grace."

The ex-official was charged with making an indecent image of a child after the category A video, the most serious kind, was recovered by police in February last year following a Football Association (FA) investigation into him.

The 43-year-old former referee, of Woodhill Road in Collingham, near Newark, Nottinghamshire, pleaded guilty to the offence at a hearing in October.

The charge of making an indecent image of a child refers to activities such as downloading, sharing or saving abuse photos or videos.

The video came to the police’s attention when Coote was being investigated by the FA, and a number of devices were seized and analysed when he was arrested at his home, a magistrates’ court was told in September.

He appeared at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday for his sentencing.

In court, Laura Jane Miller, mitigating, urged the judge to consider suspending any immediate prison sentence, 

She said: "This defendant had an outward persona as a very successul football referee. That outward persona did not reflect him as a person because behind that was an internal struggle with his mental health dating back to 2017 following the breakdown of a relationship.

"Mr Coote's cocaine use commenced in around 2019 and he has lost his career and reputation amid intense press scrutiny. He has shown remorse for this offending, he is ashamed of himself and his actions, and he has not taken any cocaine since his arrest in February, 2025.

"He now works in an adminstrative role and is trying to rebuild his life step-by-step. His life is a far cry from where it was at the height of his career and he knows he will never get that career back."

Miss Miller added: "He is not someone who will find themselves back before the courts again. He's deeply ashamed of himself and his actions."

As well as the suspended sentence, the judge placed Coote on the sex offender register for 10 years and handed him a 10-year sexual harm prevention order. She also told him he will be barred from working with children and ordered him to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.

Coote was sacked by Professional Game Match Officials Limited in December 2024 after a video of comments he had made about ex-Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp in 2020 came to light.

In August last year he was given an eight-week suspension by the FA over the Klopp footage.

Coote came out as gay in an interview with The Sun last January and said a lifelong struggle to hide his sexuality had contributed to the rant about Klopp.

He was also banned by European football’s governing body Uefa until June 30 2026 after a different video emerged of him snorting a white powder through a bank note while in Germany for Euro 2024.