8 hours ago
2
Former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg has revealed that he considered taking his own life after he was wrongly accused of racism.
The official was accused of making a racist comment towards two Chelsea players, including John Obi Mikel, in a fixture against Manchester United in 2012.
The allegations triggered investigations by the Football Association and the Metropolitan Police.
Clattenburg missed four weeks of Premier League action while the FA investigated the complaint.
The allegations were later dismissed by the Football Association and the police dropped their own inquiry.
And Chelsea admitted they 'regretted' the way they handled the accusation and the 'intense media scrutiny' faced by the referee and his family.
Mark Clattenburg revealed he considered taking his own life after he was accused of racism
He was accused of making comments to two Chelsea players in a game against Man United
The referee later went on to officiate the Euro 2016 final and the Champions League final
Clattenburg revealed the allegations caused him to consider suicide, but that he decided against it because of his newborn daughter.
He told the High Performance Podcast: 'The Obi Mikel situation affected me a lot and affected my family a lot. I think that was the closest I've ever been to, a, suicide and, b, finishing. If I didn't have a way out and I couldn't referee any more, what can I do?
'I remember my mobile phone, everybody gets the notifications, and it was a Sky Sports notification [saying] 'Mark Clattenburg accused of racial discrimination against two Chelsea players'. And I had a new born, she was only six months old.'
He added: 'It was the worst 12 hours. I remember not sleeping. I didn't go to bed. I was soul searching because I didn't know what I had said, so I'm trying to work out if I had said something in the heat of the moment. That was the hardest thing, thinking I had done it.
'It went only when time started to elapse and Chelsea couldn't provide the necessary information.
Following the ruling in 2012, Clattenburg said: 'To know you were innocent of something but that there was the opportunity for it to wreck your career was truly frightening.'
He returned to Premier League duty four weeks later and went on to referee the Euro 2016 final and the Champions League final four years later, before retiring in 2017.
