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SACKED referee David Coote has revealed he turned to cocaine over fear of coming out in the “macho world” of the Premier League.

Tearful Coote said he took coke to “escape” after being forced to hide being gay.

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David Coote says he felt unable to come out as gay as he feared the abuse he received for doing his job would get even worse[/caption]

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Coote says he has been in an ‘incredibly dark place’ since news emerged of his drug-taking at Euro 2024[/caption]

Coote also admitted he was “not sober” in his rant at ex-Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp, and got abuse and death threats as a ref.

The sacked 42-year-old told how living a lie led him down paths that eventually torpedoed his career.

Coote told The Sun: “I felt a deep sense of shame during my teenage years in particular.

“I didn’t come out to my parents until I was 21. I didn’t come out to my friends until I was 25.

“My sexuality isn’t the only reason that led me to be in that position. But I’m not telling an authentic story if I don’t say that I’m gay, and that I’ve had real struggles dealing with hiding that.

“I hid my emotions as a young ref and I hid my sexuality as well — a good quality as a referee but a terrible quality as a human being.

“And that’s led me to a whole course of behaviours.”

He says he has been in an “incredibly dark place” since news emerged of his drug-taking at Euro 2024. Without the support of family and colleagues, he added, “I’m not sure I’d be here today”.

Giving his first interview since the scandal broke, he said he hoped to help break down the “macho world” of Premier League football.

He added: “I’ve had issues around my self-esteem — and that relates to my sexuality. I’m gay and I’ve struggled with feeling proud of being ‘me’ over a long period of time.

“I have received deeply unpleasant abuse during my career as a ref and to add my sexuality to that would have been really difficult.

“There’s a lot to be done throughout football and more widely in society with regard to discrimination.

“I didn’t want to be that person that was putting their head above the parapet to be shot at, given the abuse we all get as a referee in any event.”

Coote was suspended last October after footage showed him calling then-Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp a “c***”.

The Sun then revealed a film of him snorting powder at last summer’s Euros in Germany.

We also told how he tried to arrange a drugs party during Spurs’ Carabao Cup win over Man City on October 30.

Coote was then the subject of a new FA probe over allegedly issuing a yellow card to order — before he was eventually fired.

In an emotional interview, he says a “pressure cooker” of suppressed emotion, combined with a punishing work schedule, left him wanting to “escape” with cocaine.

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Coote was suspended last October after footage showed him calling then-Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp a ‘c***’[/caption]

Louis Wood News Group Newspapers Ltd

The sacked 42-year-old said living a lie led him down paths which eventually torpedoed his career[/caption]

He said: “It’s not something I was reliant on day by day, week by week, month by month.

“I’ve had long periods where I’ve not used it — but it was one of the escape routes I had. Just getting away from the stresses, the relentlessness of the job. It fills me with a huge sense of shame to say that I took that route.”

He recalled: “In 2023 I lost my mum very suddenly. At the same time my uncle was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. After Covid and the introduction of VAR, six officials were suddenly needed for each game.

“I was selected by Fifa for the U17 World Cup in Indonesia, as well as the Euros and Olympics last year.

“It meant that over the course of the 2023-24 season I was involved in more than 90 games — often back to back. At the end of last season I went straight into the Euros and that was incredibly pressurised. I had another tournament coming up immediately — heading to Paris for the Olympics.”

The cocaine footage saw him inhale a 4in line up a US banknote. Another image showed his bank card next to six chopped-up lines.

I’m gay and I have struggled with feeling proud of being ‘me’ over a long period of time

He said: “I don’t recognise myself in the cocaine video. I can’t resonate with how I felt then, but that was me. I was struggling with the schedule and there was no opportunity to stop. And so I found myself in that position — escaping.”

Coote is still being probed after a pal told him he was putting money on Leeds player Ezgjan Alioski getting booked before a 2019 clash against West Brom.

Coote did caution the player and later messaged his friend: “I hope you backed as discussed.” However he told The Sun: “There was no agreement prior to the game. I went and did my job. The player committed a yellow card tackle.”

He added: “I received nothing for it. I’m really disappointed that anything like this has come out because it tarnishes the integrity of the game. And whatever people think of me as a referee, as a human I have always gone out and done my best on the pitch.”

Coote says he was merely trying to “deflect” the pal but admitted: “I wasn’t in a great place, and I was messaging people that in hindsight I shouldn’t have trusted. I was naive.” Coote says he “made some really poor choices and I really wish I could turn back the clock now and do things differently”.

But he said he can instead take responsibility. After seeking therapy, he has kicked his drug habit

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Coote believes the dramatic turn of events which cost him his beloved job in football has helped him re-evaluate his life[/caption]

Coote said: “I put on this hard exterior. Football became a place where I could go and referee and be engrossed in the game.

“But then I’d come home and it would be more difficult because I’m living a double sense of being.

“To other people who are in my situation, I’d say seek help and talk to somebody because if you bottle it up like I have done it has to come out in some way.”

‘POOR CHOICES’

Coote believes the dramatic events which cost him his beloved job in football has helped him take stock.

He said: “It’s been incredibly tough because I loved the game. I started refereeing when I was 14.

“I’ve found it easier since knowing my fate and being able to re-evaluate what’s important to me.

“To spend some quality time with family and friends, and take time to make sure I’m in the best place to move forwards.”

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KYLE WALKER admitted he felt “uncomfortable” telling Pep Guardiola he wanted to quit Manchester City.

The England defender, 34, got unveiled by new club AC Milan yesterday — and revealed a lack of games was one reason for leaving on loan.

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Kyle Walker felt ‘uncomfortable’ telling Pep Guardiola he wanted to quit[/caption]

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Walker has joined AC Milan on loan till the end of the season[/caption]

Boss Guardiola gave a frosty answer when asked on Friday if Walker would be missed, saying only that his captain “decided to leave”.

And Walker said: “When I spoke with Pep, it wasn’t a comfortable conversation because of the respect we have for each other.

“What he’s won at City, I have won it, too. I like to think he knows what I bring to a dressing room.

“City was my family — from the cooks to cleaners, kitmen and physios. I like to think I was liked and helped everyone blend in.

“But things weren’t going well there and I wasn’t playing enough.”

Despite City’s slump, the defender started just nine Prem games this season — along with two matches in other competitions.

Walker’s deal has 18 months left to run and he will initially be on loan for the rest of the season.

He said: “I would have honoured the contract if they hadn’t let me leave as that’s me as a person.

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“But it just comes down to challenges where you think, ‘OK, I need to try something different’.

“I spoke to many ex- players who never moved abroad and they told me they wished they had.”

Walker has picked the No 32 shirt — the same number David Beckham sported playing there.

He has vowed to learn Italian and, despite picking up 17 major trophies at the Etihad, is hungry for success in a new country.

The veteran added: “I want to show I can do it in the Italian league, too.

“I still have fire in my belly — I don’t just want to have won things in just one country.”

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Walker in training for AC Milan[/caption]

IT may be 33 years since mum-of-two Patricia Hall vanished without trace after a row with her husband – but her disappearance is not forgotten.

The bubbly Avon lady — who was devoted to sons Andrew, then nine, and five-year-old Graeme — was feared murdered by her husband Keith after he told a covert cop he had “strangled” her and dumped the body.

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Keith Hall beams as he is driven away from Leeds Crown Court after he was acquitted of murdering his wife Patricia in 1994[/caption]

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But a trial judge would not allow a secret recording of his confession to be used as court evidence and he was cleared of any crime.

Now, The Sun can reveal that West Yorkshire Police have opened a cold case review in a bid to discover what happened to Patricia.

Assistant Chief Constable Pat Twiggs, the force’s head of specialist crime and criminal justice, said: “Our major investigation review team is currently conducting a cold case review into the disappearance of Patricia Hall, which is a process we carry out periodically as standard procedure for unsolved cases.

“That review is likely to conclude in the next few months.

“We are maintaining contact with Patricia’s family and doing everything we can to support them and keep them informed.

“We would welcome any new information that could assist in getting her family the answers they need.”

I cannot accept that she remains a missing person when she has never contacted me or her lads, who she adored, and has never touched her bank account or passport. Nothing.

Christine Weatherhead

Patricia’s younger sister, Christine Weatherhead — who believes her sibling is dead — has welcomed news the case will be re-examined.

‘Words haunt me’

The 63-year-old, who helps husband Robert on their North Yorkshire farm, said: “I want to get justice for Pat before I die.

“I cannot accept that she remains a missing person when she has never contacted me or her lads, who she adored, and has never touched her bank account or passport. Nothing.

“Only a fool would believe she was still alive, so for me it is important to have on record how she died and who was responsible for that.

“Without a doubt, Pat’s disappearance has taken its toll emotionally and mentally on me. But while I can keep finding the strength to fight on, I will, for Pat.”

Former nurse Christine told how, once a week, she would meet Patricia in Leeds for a catch up with their brother, Brian, over a cuppa.

Still, not a day goes by when she does not think about her sister, who was 39 when she was last seen.

Patricia is still classed by West Yorkshire Police as missing.

No one has ever been convicted of her murder, despite Keith’s claim during a cop sting that he had killed her and dumped her body in an industrial incinerator.

He has always denied harming his wife and subsequently insisted his “confession” was all lies.

This second look at Patricia’s disappearance is, like all cold case reviews, not a reinvestigation.

It is understood that detectives are going over witness statements taken at the time, and liaising with forensic scientists to discover if improved technology can unearth some fresh clues.

A case becomes cold when all viable leads have been ex- hausted and the senior investigating officer considers nothing further can be done.

Patricia vanished from her semi-detached home in the suburb of Pudsey, West Yorkshire, in the early hours of January 27, 1992.

The Saturday before, she and her children had spent the day at Christine’s farm with her family.

Christine said: “She told me she was planning to start a new life with the lads in Scotland, one of her favourite places.

“She had decided to divorce Keith due to his volatile temper.

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Ross Parris

Police dig up a roundabout during the original the Nineties investigation[/caption]

“She was happy and I just thank God that is my final memory of her.”

Keith has said that on the evening of January 26, Patricia told him she wanted a divorce.

He feared losing half their home, his sons and his grocery business.

The sisters were due to meet on January 28, but Christine rang Patricia that morning to cancel their regular get-together.

She said: “I left a message but Pat, unusually, never called me back. Keith rang me that evening and told me she had left their home the day before and he did not know where she was.

“I asked if he’d reported her missing to the police, but he hadn’t.

“I knew Pat would never leave her boys with him, so my brothers and I were suspicious from the start.

“A police officer cousin reported her missing the next day.”

The family car, a blue Ford Sierra, was found abandoned a mile from her home.

 A witness told officers that, on the night Patricia disappeared, he saw a man lifting something into or out of the car on the same road, climb over a fence into a field and walk towards a nearby pond.

Police were convinced that man was Keith Hall.

Months earlier, Christine had had a heartbreaking chat with Patricia.

She recalled: “She said, ‘If anything happens to me, will you look after the boys?’.

“I said of course, and thought she meant anything happening due to the depression she had previously suffered — but had recovered from.

“How those words haunt me to this day.”

‘He was cocky, arrogant’

Christine said she even confronted Keith and asked him if he had strangled Patricia, and that he replied, “That’s your opinion, isn’t it?”

Six months after Patricia’s disappearance, Keith answered a lonely hearts advert in the local paper.

One woman took a note he wrote her to police, who then planned a “honey trap” undercover operation, with a female detective pretending to be “Liz”, his would-be love interest.

I am definitely of the opinion that Patricia Anne Hall was murdered by her husband . . .  and that her body has been deliberately destroyed by burning and therefore cannot be recovered.

West Yorkshire David Hinchliff Senior coroner

Following a handful of dates and phone calls, and 13 months after Patricia’s disappearance, Keith, now 72 and a retired bread delivery man, told Liz that he loved her and wanted to share a life with her.

On a cold February evening in 1993, sitting in a pub car park in an unmarked police car, Liz told Keith she was worried about Patricia suddenly returning, and sought reassurance she would not.

Keith eventually said: “I strangled her, but it wasn’t easy,” and claimed he dumped “it” — her body — in an industrial incinerator.

His confession was secretly taped, but the recording was not allowed to be heard by a jury a year later when he was brought to trial, as the judge ruled it broke police interviewing guidelines.

Keith was cleared of his wife’s murder and the case remains open.

Christine said: “At pre-trial hearings, two separate judges said they would allow the tape, but the trial judge refused.

“What is the point of trial by jury if they are denied what could be vital evidence?

“Everywhere I have turned to get justice for my sister, I met a brick wall.

“How can this be fair to Pat?”

Christine’s efforts to have her sister declared dead have been blocked over the years.

That is despite the then West Yorkshire senior coroner David Hinchliff writing to the Home Office in April 1994 asking for an inquest, and stating: “I am definitely of the opinion that Patricia Anne Hall was murdered by her husband . . .  and that her body has been deliberately destroyed by burning and therefore cannot be recovered.”

In February 1995, the case was debated in Parliament by Patricia’s then MP, Sir Giles Shaw, with his request for an inquest rejected.

Ex-detective constable Andy Kennedy worked on the case from day one, interviewing Keith under caution four times.

He said: “Some members of the public thought we were hard on him, but we were not working for Keith, we were working for Pat — and she was not there to defend herself.

“She had left home without her glasses, coats or shoes.

“If Keith cared about where she was, he would have helped us.

“Instead, he was cocky, arrogant and refused to answer our questions.

“I hope the review gives Pat’s loved ones the answers she and they deserve.”

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West Yorkshire cops have confirmed they are again looking at Patricia’s disappearance[/caption]

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