{"id":882399,"date":"2026-09-04T00:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T00:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/882399\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T00:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T00:22:10","slug":"mike-dean-claims-he-played-secret-games-for-a-laugh-while-refereeing-matches-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/882399\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Dean claims he played secret games for a laugh while refereeing matches | Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former Premier League<\/a> referee Mike Dean claims he used to take part in secret challenges while officiating, including trying to stay in the centre circle for as long as possible, as he confessed to \u201cjust joking about\u201d during matches. The remarks, made by one of the most well-known officials in the English game, have been met with bemusement by refereeing officials who say there is no evidence of any such behaviour having ever taken place.<\/p>\n

Dean was a member of the select group of referees for more than two decades before he retired in 2022 and a brief spell as a video assistant referee followed. In an interview on Jamie Vardy\u2019s podcast this week, Dean shared anecdotes from his time as a top-flight official in the pre-VAR era. \u201cWe used to say, \u2018We\u2019ll kick off now. Right, see how long we can go without blowing a whistle,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve done that a few times in the Premier League, before VAR obviously \u2013 [I] went 20, 25 minutes without blowing a whistle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to do another thing. I used to stand in the centre circle \u2013 see how long I could stay in the centre circle before I had to leave. That was just me joking about. I got about 15 minutes once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials within the refereeing organisation, Pro Ref, are understood to be puzzled by the claims, with the suggestion that a referee could stay in the centre circle for 15 minutes without someone noticing, for example, seen as highly improbable.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time that Dean has courted controversy in a post-retirement interview. Dean was stood down from his role as a VAR in 2023 after failing to intervene over an error in a match between Tottenham and Chelsea, refereed by Anthony Taylor. Describing Taylor as a \u201cmate\u201d, Dean told Simon Jordan\u2019s podcast that he had chosen not to ask Taylor to review his decision on a VAR monitor because he didn\u2019t want him to have \u201cany more grief than he already had<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dean earned notoriety during his time as a referee for his flamboyant mannerisms and apparent eye for the camera \u2013 as captured in the terrace chant \u201cMike Dean, it\u2019s all about you\u201d. But he was also held to be one of the best officials in the top flight, taking charge of 561 matches \u2013 and issuing a record 114 red cards \u2013 over the course of his 22-year career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Premier League referee Mike Dean claims he used to take part in secret challenges while officiating,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-882399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}