In a recent episode of the podcast “Jamie Vardy’s Having a Party,” former referee Mike Dean sparked controversy by admitting to playful rule-bending during top-flight matches prior to the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) technology.<\/p>\n
Dean, now 61, told hosts Jamie Vardy and comedian Josh James that he and his assistant referees would challenge themselves to see how long they could go without blowing their whistles. “We used to say: ‘Right, we’ll kick off now, right? See how long we can go without blowing a whistle.’ Done that a few times in the Premier, before VAR obviously. Went 20-25 minutes without blowing a whistle a few times,” Dean explained.<\/p>\n
The former Wirral official also disclosed another tactic: remaining stationary at the center circle for extended periods while play continued around him. Dean claimed he once stayed in one spot for nearly 15 minutes, describing it as a joke to his guests, who reacted with surprised laughter.<\/p>\n
The comments drew criticism for undermining the integrity of officiating, with observers noting the stark contrast between such practices and the strict protocols enforced under the VAR era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Dean reveals on Jamie Vardy’s podcast that he and his assistants played games with whistles and positioning before VAR existed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[318,993,319,995,994,10],"class_list":["post-400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-football","tag-mike-dean","tag-premier-league","tag-refereeing","tag-var","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}