Former referee Mark Clattenburg has spoken out following Nottingham Forest's complaint to the PGMOL about Everton captain James Tarkowski
Everton captain James Tarkowski during the 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest and (inset) Mark Clattenburg
Everton captain James Tarkowski during the 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest and (inset) Mark Clattenburg
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Former referee Mark Clattenburg has waded into Nottingham Forest’s row over Everton captain James Tarkowski. The Blues skipper was involved in an off the ball incident in the first half of the 3-0 win at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday when he used his torso to bump into Dan Ndoye.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, visiting manager Sean Dyche, who had been taking on his previous employers, complained: “I said to big Tarky just to be clear, and I respect him and like him as a bloke, I said to him, how he got away with that in the first half, I don’t know what’s going on there.
“The referee is honest, I went to see him, and he said he didn’t see it and none of the officials saw it, but I said: ‘VAR saw it and they did nothing about it.’
“I’m very, very surprised at that and I’ve told him (Tarkowski) that I’m going to tell you this by the way.”
Forest have subsequently made a complaint to the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited, the organisation responsible for referees), and the ECHO understands that the East Midlands outfit believe Tarkowski’s shoulder barge on Ndoye amounted to violent conduct, and the 32-year-old should have been sent off.
The incident wasn’t seen by on-field referee Chris Kavanagh, and the VAR official James Bell, didn’t think it was worthy of a red card and so didn’t intervene.
Clattenburg told Everton News: “Tarkowski will not be retrospectively punished for the barge in the back of his opponent in the recent Everton v Nottingham Forest match.
“Forest have written to the PGMOL and this will lead to the management of PGMOL reaching out and explaining why the red card was not issued.
“The FA can only punish a player after the match if it’s missed by the match officials. With VAR, this cannot happen now as if it was missed, then use of VAR will be further damaged as they should not miss incidents on the field of play.”
Clattenburg has previously been employed by Forest as their ‘referee lobbyist’ having been appointed in February 2024.
Following Everton’s 2-0 home win over them on April 21 that year, he hit out at referee Anthony Taylor and on duty VAR official Stuart Attwell over their handling of the fixture, branding it “a joke.”
The retired County Durham official, 50, is infamous among Everton’s fanbase following his own refereeing display in their Merseyside Derby defeat at Goodison Park on October 20, 2007.
Liverpool triumphed 2-1 thanks to a 92nd-minute penalty from Dirk Kuyt, who had also earlier netted from the spot in the 54th minute.
Clattenburg sent off two Everton players, Tony Hibbert and Phil Neville, but it was his two non-decisions for the Blues that courted the controversy. He failed to send off Kuyt, who would go on to score the winner, for a flying two-footed lunge on Neville and then refused to point to the spot when Jamie Carragher wrestled Joleon Lescott to the ground in stoppage time.
Although Clattenburg, who didn’t officiate another Everton game for more than four years and then had to wait another two before taking charge of another match at Goodison, owned up to his errors almost 14 years later on Carragher’s podcast The Greatest Game, he seemed to show little remorse for the implications of his shambolic showing.
He said: “I was out of my depth. I don't know why I was refereeing it. I’d just done the Manchester derby and the London derby, so it was my third derby in three or four weeks. “I had underestimated it - the working-class derby. The other two were different derbies, this one was brutal. Some derbies are different in certain stadiums.
“Sunderland-Newcastle is more intense at Sunderland and Everton-Liverpool is more intense at Goodison. There was always more intensity.
“I remember the first half I did okay, but in the second half I had an absolute nightmare. I listened to my assistant referee for the Dirk Kuyt challenge, which when you look back was a stonewall red.”