Referee Mike Dean has opened up about the death threats he claimed to have received in the wake of his decision to dismiss Tomas Soucek in last season's Premier League encounter with Fulham.
The Czech Republic midfielder was dismissed by Dean in added-on time at the end of the game, after the official used the pitchside monitor to review the incident, when accidentally catching Fulham forward Aleksandar Mitrovic with a flailing limb.Dean's call was later described by Hammers boss David Moyes as "an embarrassing decision" before a club appeal was subsequently upheld by the FA.
In addition to being publicly admonished by Moyes, Dean - who is retiring at the end of the season after more than 20 years as a Premier League match official - contacted police after his daughter was sent death threats via social media.
Speaking in conversation with the BBC's Mark Chapman, the 53-year-old explained how he came to the decision to dismiss Soucek despite having initially considered the challenge to be worthy of no more than a booking.
"I saw the decision on the field and I was more than happy to go with the yellow card," said Dean. "All the players were happy, although Mitrovic overreacted a bit.
"You wait a bit and then you hear VAR say 'you need to go and have a look at the screen, we need to show you something - there's been a movement of the player'. I think it was in his face, a punch or whatever.
"I'm kind of going over thinking 'it's not', but it's very hard to stick with an on-field decision when you get sent over by VAR. I wish I had have, as it would've saved me a hell of a lot of trouble I had off the pitch after that game."
And as he has no online presence, Dean revealed how his family were dragged into the resulting furore.
"My daughter's had some stuff through because she's on social media and I'm not," he said. "She got death threats - they said they knew where we lived and we'd get petrol on my house, that kind of stuff. It was pretty bad to be fair.
"I told the Premier League and they got the police involved. I reported it to the police and they came round. Sometimes to try to keep it hush hush because you don't want people to know but my wife said 'let's get it out there and let people know what's going on'.
"We need more protection. Because I made it quite public luckily enough for me they found who the people where - I think they from Ireland, they traced them down because the stupid guys left their addresses and stuff on it. They did something, I don't really want to know what but it wasn't good."
And even though it was reported at the time how Dean had been "relieved of his duties" the following weekend, the Wirral-born official claimed it was, on the contrary, his decision not to officiate in the wake of the incident and subsequent threats.
"We as a family were pretty badly affected for a couple of weeks," he added, "and I just chose to come off games myself as I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I had to be strong for the family that week, but it was tough."
Still Dean admitted he was "surprised" to be given a game involving West Ham less than a month later, when Moyes' side entertained Leeds at the London Olympic Stadium - a game the Irons won 2-0 through goals from Jesse Lingard - the only Hammer booked by Dean on the day - and Craig Dawson.
"I had West Ham four weeks later," he said. "I was surprised to get them again so soon. Soucek, who I'd sent off [against Fulham], I apologised to straight away. He came over and was great.
"It was good to get that out of the way and hopefully it'll never happen again."
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