First £1m football ref signed by Saudi Arabia
ONE of Britain’s top football referees is hanging up his Premier League whistle after securing a reported £1million a year deal to move to Saudi Arabia.
Mark Clattenburg will now earn ten times his current salary of £90,000 after deciding to quit the top flight after 12 years to work in the Middle East.
The 41-year-old is considered to be one of the best referees in football and took charge of the Euro 2016 final, the Champions League final and the FA Cup final last season.
Clattenburg had originally been linked with a move to officiate in China, where it was claimed he would be earning £1 million a year.
Sources claimed last night that the deal to bring him to the Saudi Professional League would have seen Clattenburg offered the same type of money. Speaking on the Saudi league’s Twitter account last night, Clattenburg said: ‘This is an important move forward. We have professional referees in the country that I am leaving, which has been a big positive.
‘One thing I’d like to do is work with the refereeing team and the president to make this happen so that it will be successful for many, many years to come.’
Clattenburg took charge of his first Football League game in 2000. Four years later, he was promoted to the Premier League.
But public attention has often been drawn to his life off the pitch.
He was suspended in 2008 following an investigation into allegations he owed £60,000 as a result of a failed business venture, and he later had his elite referee status revoked. How- ever, at an appeal in February 2009, his punishment was reduced to an eight-month suspension, backdated to August 2008.
He was also dropped from officiating in 2014 for speaking on the phone
‘Important move forward’
with then-Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock after a match and leaving the Palace ground alone to drive to an Ed Sheeran concert.
The rules state that referees and their assistants should travel to and from games together for ‘integrity and security’ reasons. He also drives a car with the number plate ‘C19TTS’ which is supposed to spell out his nickname ‘Clatts’.
And last summer he got two tattoos to commemorate officiating the Euro 2016 and Champions League finals.
Clattenburg’s final Premier League game was Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Hull last Saturday when controversially a handball was missed before Alexis Sanchez scored the opening goal.
His move comes after Howard Webb – also a former top flight official – resigned as Saudi Arabia’s head of refereeing two weeks ago.
The Saudi Professional League is one of west Asia’s strongest domestic leagues.