Mike Dean said he had gone 20 or 25 minutes without blowing his whistle a few times in the Premier League before VAR. A BBC Sport review found only four examples in its selected group of matches, with none reaching 20 minutes. The longest was 18 minutes and 20 seconds in a game involving Crystal Palace and Stoke.
That comparison leaves a clear distinction between Dean’s recollection and the timings identified by the review. His account was that he had gone 20 to 25 minutes without blowing his whistle, while BBC Sport’s longest example stopped short of 20 minutes. The review nevertheless said the evidence backed his claim to have “a high threshold”, with no real evidence of obviously missed free-kicks.
Dean’s explanation and the scope of the review
Dean subsequently said: “Throughout my 25 years as a professional referee, I have always applied the Laws of the Game to the best of my ability.” He also described his refereeing approach by saying: “My approach as a referee was always to allow the game to flow.” The former Premier League referee said he did not intend to “undermine the integrity of refereeing”.
Former referee Mark Halsey offered a sharply different assessment of the proposed duration. Halsey said it would be “impossible” to hold the whistle for just a few minutes, let alone more than 20. BBC Sport then looked at Premier League games officiated by Dean from 2008-09 until 2018-19, when the video assistant referee was introduced.
The focus was on 214 games that were 0-0 after 15 minutes. That selection and the stated 2008-09-to-2018-19 period define the review’s scope. Within that group, only four examples could be found, and no game reached 20 minutes. The comparison therefore rests on those 214 selected games and the four examples identified within them.
What the individual timings show
One example reached 13 minutes and 39 seconds before the referee first needed to use the whistle. An earlier incident also provided context for that timing: a Sunderland player was brought down after 11 minutes and 21 seconds in what BBC Sport described as definitely a foul, and Dean played advantage. The sequence distinguishes a decision to play advantage from an immediate whistle.
Another example involved Alejandro Faurlin. The match was 16 minutes and 42 seconds old when Faurlin was fouled and won a free-kick. Dean had, however, blown his whistle after six minutes and 25 seconds because a throw-in was not taken in the right place. The free-kick timing was therefore later than the earlier use of the whistle connected to the throw-in.
The longest example identified by BBC Sport involved Crystal Palace and Stoke. It was 18 minutes and 20 seconds before Dean gave a free-kick for a foul on Stoke City’s Ramadan Sobhi. That 18:20 timing was the longest found by the review, but the review still found no game that reached 20 minutes.
A further example also contained an early whistle that was not for a free-kick. The referee blew his whistle after three minutes and eight seconds to indicate that a corner had been awarded. As with the throw-in example, the recorded use of the whistle and the timing of a later free-kick are separate details when Dean’s account is compared with the match record.
What BBC Sport’s findings support
BBC Sport said the evidence backed Dean’s claim to have “a high threshold”, with no real evidence of obviously missed free-kicks. That finding fits his statement that his approach was always to allow the game to flow. The Sunderland incident also shows Dean playing advantage after what BBC Sport described as definitely a foul, rather than immediately stopping play.
The more specific numerical comparison remains unchanged: Dean said he had gone 20 or 25 minutes without blowing his whistle a few times in the Premier League before VAR, while only four examples were found in BBC Sport’s review and none reached 20 minutes. The strongest support in the review is therefore for Dean’s description of a high threshold. Its longest identified example was the 18-minute-and-20-second passage involving Crystal Palace and Stoke.