Anthony Taylor: My family don’t come to matches because of abuse

Taylor is not on social media as he does not want to “waste time” reading negative comments or opinions.

Last year the Premier League launched an investigation following online abuse directed at the official.

“If you’re continually told you’re not very good, whether that be by people in the media, by pundits, or even ex-officials, then people’s mental health could potentially suffer,” he says.

“The footballing culture in general is, ‘we need to win this game at all costs’.

“The lengths that people go to post-game with a lot of things now to spread false narratives, to spread malicious conspiracy theories… it creates a hugely negative environment for people to operate in.”

Taylor is also concerned by the treatment of officials in grassroots football, adding “every single weekend you can go to any local park across the UK and you can see a parent on the sideline verbally abusing a young referee. That’s not an environment conducive to people getting better. I don’t understand how people think that’s acceptable.”

Asked whether it is fair for top referees to expect a high level of scrutiny given what can be at stake on the pitch, Taylor says: “I wouldn’t argue against scrutiny being there.”

But he adds: “I’m not saying scrutiny isn’t there to be expected, but everybody who watches football always sees a game through the eyes of their team. And the result of a football match and the culmination of a football season is multi-faceted.

“It’s not dependent on one match official decision. It’s not dependent on one player missing one penalty in a game. It’s not dependent on one coach making one tactical error during a game. Playing over 38 games…

“So you say the argument one decision has cost somebody the whole season… it’s just factually not true because there’ll be plenty of other incidents in a game or over that season where the results of games have been affected.

“What I’m saying is that you can have scrutiny and you can have critique. But it’s very rarely balanced. Nobody really talks about the positive side of things a lot of time these days, either.”

Referees’ body Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) has a team of psychologists responsible for match officials’ mental wellbeing, and works with mental health charity Mind.