Mike Dean says he used to treat Premier League matches like a private challenge, sometimes seeing how long he could go without blowing the whistle and sometimes how long he could stay in the centre circle. He also said he once went 20, 25 minutes without a whistle before VAR existed, and got about 15 minutes in the centre circle. BBC Sport says referee figures consider those claims unfounded and tied to the pre-video assistant referee era before 2019.
The whistle and the centre circle
Dean's comments came in a BBC interview, and they are the sort of line that lands because it sounds both ridiculous and strangely specific. "We used to say 'we'll kick off now. Right, see how long we can go without blowing a whistle'," he said.
He added: "I've done that a few times in the Premier League, before VAR obviously - went 20, 25 minutes without blowing a whistle." On the centre circle, he said: "I used to stand in the centre circle - see how long I could stay in the centre circle before I had to leave."
He later described that as a joke, saying: "That was just me joking about. I got about 15 minutes once."
The Chelsea and Tottenham VAR row
The comment that will stick with most readers is not the whistle story, though. Dean also said of the Cristian Romero and Marc Cucurella incident in a Chelsea-Tottenham match that he did not want to send Anthony Taylor to the monitor because Taylor was "a mate as well as a referee".
That is where the issue gets messy, because the old explanation is personal by definition and it sits inside a public VAR row. Chelsea have won 3 of their last 5 matches, while Tottenham have won only 1 of their last 5, which keeps the clubs in the frame whenever the incident is brought back up.
Dean's career gives the remarks extra weight. He worked as a professional official for 28 years, started officiating in 1985, reached the Premier League in 2000 and handled the 2008 FA Cup final and the 2011 League Cup final at Wembley.
He later retired after spending the 2022-23 season as a full-time VAR, which makes the public comments feel even more uneasy. The whistle games read like old dressing-room humour; the monitor explanation is still the part that invites the hardest scrutiny.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
