Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has exclusively
revealed how his boss Mike Riley and Premier League chief executive Richard
Scudamore ‘mistreated’ the match official following his battle back from
cancer.
Halsey was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2009, and sounded
out Mike Riley, the general manager of the Professional Game Match Officials or
PGMO, likening his treatment after being given the all clear to ‘bullying’.
Halsey met with Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore
privately to discuss the potential mismanagement of the PGMO, a body that is
tasked with the responsibility of providing excellence in officiating in
English football at professional level:
‘I told him my
feelings, 2 years ago toward the current management team and the structure and
he agreed with me, on a lot of things, but he turned round and said he’d deny
ever having this conversation.’
Halsey has since hung up his whistle at the end of the
2012/13 season and was offered £50,000 as an exit package on retirement. This
agreement would extinguish any subsequent publication of a Mark Halsey
autobiography; Halsey refused, and claims he was never motivated by financial
gain:
‘No, because, I’ve
been given a 2nd chance in life, theirs more to life than money,
life’s precious, you don’t need money.’
Following a successful but nevertheless gruelling course of
both radio and chemotherapy, all the former referee could think about was
getting his life and career, back on track, Halsey claims his employers weren’t
convinced:
‘I remember being
given the all clear, I said to the general manager – I’m going to try do a
fitness test by the end of the month, he said no, I want a second opinion,
because I want to see what the Christie hospital and your doctor is saying is
the truth.’
The all clear came in December, and took two months for the
recovered Halsey to hear back from his general manager.
The next phase involved fitness tests, the PGMO exercises a
three strikes and you’re out policy on failed fitness tests, the general
manager, Halsey claims, gave the cancer survivor no special dispensation,
insisting that should he fail this fitness test it ‘will count’ and that Riley
had ‘to be fair to all the other referees.’
This followed months of intense cardiovascular training
Halsey put himself through to forge a comeback and officiate the beautiful
game.
‘I went through
January, went through February, took the fitness test, failed it miserably,
I’ve never ever in all my career, failed a fitness test.’
Halsey recalls the moments after: I remember just sitting on the steps, and just let all my emotions out,
put my head in me hands and just burst into tears, because, I couldn’t see
myself coming back.’
Following the further trauma of failing his first fitness test
of his career, the powers that be were apparently nowhere to be seen for
support.
‘I got a fitness
programme from Bolton wanderers where I was training because the new PGMO
manager told the fitness guru at the Premier League he wasn’t allowed to talk to
me, wasn’t allowed to give me any training whatsoever – the reason being if I
dropped down dead or something.’
Halsey proved his fitness and return to officiating at the
top level of the game in 2010, retiring from refereeing at Manchester City’s
Premier League game at home to Norwich City at the end of last season.
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