Formerly a referee analyst for Nottingham Forest, Mark Clattenburg’s latest comments working for Amazon Prime covering Liverpool in the Champions League caused a stir…
Mark Clattenburg was the source of more fury on Tuesday night – this time amongst Liverpool supporters – for a comment made in his latest role since leaving Nottingham Forest.
With several key decisions going against Forest in last season’s relegation battle, in February the former Premier League official was brought in to help provide an understanding as to why. Three months later he would depart his position as a referee analyst, bringing an end to a controversial three-month association with the club.
Supporters will vividly remember April’s loss to Everton at Goodison Park, after which a club statement expressed fury with three penalty decisions turned down and comments made about VAR Stuart Attwell. Clattenburg was urged to distance himself from such a statement by Gary Neville, but instead doubled down by criticising the ‘hat-trick of howlers’ that led to Forest’s defeat.
Eventually the pundit got his wish, with Clattenburg acknowledging that his tenure at the City Ground was only serving to heighten friction with fellow stakeholders rather than diminish it. Neville also had to backtrack after Sky Sports apologised for his comments.
Now in his post-Forest days, 49-year-old Clattenburg has found new work similar to that a number of former referees have taken up in recent seasons. Last night, his name was spotted amongst the cast of pundits providing analysis on Amazon Prime’s coverage of the UEFA Champions League.
Specifically, he was tasked with providing comment on Liverpool’s trip to AC Milan. Arne Slot’s side were able to bounce back from Forest’s hammer blow at Anfield last Saturday by defeating their Italian opponents at the San Siro, though only after falling behind.
As the match evolved and the six-time competition winners took greater control of proceedings, the Milan support whipped up a chorus of two specific chants towards Norwegian referee Espan Eskas, who was evidently felt to be favouring the visitors.
As these frustrations grew, Clattenburg’s explained what his advice to the match official would be. “I think he needs to calm the crowd down, the crowd is against him. I think he just needs to give one or two small fouls to get the judgement back,” he said.
And in response, Liverpool supporters on X, formerly Twitter, were dumfounded that a man who took charge of the 2016 Champions League final could suggest such a thing:
@Maxi_1892: “Clattenburg telling the ref to give Milan small fouls to appease the crowd, what an outrageous thing to say.”
@LFCData: “Yeah I heard that too…. Referee shouldn’t be managing the crowd’s emotions.”
@DaveBibby: “I was just thinking what a great job the ref has done and they brought Clattenburg on to tell us how he should be ruining the game.”
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