Mike Dean, the long-serving Premier League referee who is set to retire, described his daughter's confusion on receiving death threats for one of his red card decisions.
After sending off West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek last year, Dean, the most recognizable current official in the domestic game, was hit with a torrent of insults.
Soucek had been punished for elbowing Fulham's Aleksandar Mitrovic in February last year, but West Ham successfully appealed the dismissal.
Dean, retiring this summer, has now spoken out about the week the thugs said they were "going to put gas in the house."
"My daughter received death threats," Dean told the BBC. "They said they knew where we lived and they were going to put Molotov cocktails in the house. It was pretty bad. I told the Premier League, they got the police involved. I reported it to the police and they approached me. My family was quite affected by it. for a couple of weeks. I just pulled myself out of games because I wasn't in the right frame of mind."
The Premier League went public to detail Dean's abuse at the time. Looking back on his career, Dean said in the BBC interview that he would "terribly" miss refereeing at the top level.
His proudest achievement was, he said, "being at the top for 22 years." "Being in the position I've been in for so long and refereeing the best football of all time, having the best seat in the house every week and not having to pay for it...it's ideal. I don't know what I'll be like in August".
Even though Var led Dean to make the decision to send Soucek off, he's still in favor of having a video assistant referee and being instructed to go to the pitch-side monitor. He says that he has gotten over his initial concerns about the technology.
"When it first came out, I used to hate it," he said. "I had a run-in with the bosses about it. It wasn't for me. I'd been umpiring for 19 years without someone whispering in my ear what to do."
"I've found that in the last two or three years it has helped me 100 percent. I'd rather be sent on screen and make the right decision than make the wrong decision and drive home and be manhandled by the press."
