Mark will never get to referee at World Cup – it is a real shame

Something is clearly wrong if world’s best official has decided to go while still in his prime

ark Clattenburg is a massive loss to the English game. He was the world’s No 1 referee and, by a mile, the best that we had.

I speak to him, so I knew that him quitting was on the cards some weeks ago and I think that, as it rolls out, you will hear about Mark’s disappointment over how he has been managed, the lack of support for him, and the system by which referees’ performances are rated.

He was elite referee, and he should have been treated with respect, but I do not think he has been. He was not getting the appointments on a regular basis, he was not getting the big teams on a regular basis.

Everybody says we have got the best referees in the world, but that might be in question now that Mark has gone.

When I used to have discussions with Philip Don and we wanted to set up professional refereeing, the whole aim was to have a rolling succession plan that fed new blood through in terms of quality.

What I see now is that we are probably going to be down to about four or five referees of quality. Some have got the badge – they are professional referees – but, in truth, they are not cutting it. These guys, with good health, can go to 50.

We lost seven years of service of Howard Webb and now we are going to lose nine years from Mark. He has not been a World Cup referee. He was due to go to the World Cup next year, so something is clearly wrong. Somebody needs to look at it, instead of bull-----ing us all.

If part of his decision to go now is to help secure his family financially for the future, would you not question, with all the money that is in the game, why he has to do that? I have been saying for two years that the salaries of referees should be more like £250,000, rather than £100,000.

Many years ago, I sat at Hillsborough as an assessor and watched Mark referee a reserve game with the FA’s regional director of coaching. He said to me: “This is the best referee I’ve ever seen.”

When I was his boss, I saw that development, watched him mature as a referee and deliver for me week in, week out.

What I termed the ‘golden games’, the big derby matches, the London derbies, Manchester United v Liverpool, you could put him in, much as I did with Graham Poll and Howard.

At times, I have had to lift him through difficult periods. The racism accusation was difficult. He got zilch support from the Professional Game Match Officials on that one. None. We knew he was not guilty of it. Someone needed to say that publicly and privately.

As for the controversy over him attending an Ed Sheeran concert after a game, and his love of tattoos, we have got to live in the real world. There are different personalities.

If we are not careful, we are going to get a group of referees from one part of society: schoolteachers and policemen.