Former Premier League referee David Coote was handed a suspended prison sentence on Thursday after pleading guilty to a charge of making an indecent image of a child, Afrosport reports.
The 43-year-old was dismissed last year by English football referee body, PGMOL, after a video circulated on social media of him making derogatory comments about former Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp.
Further investigations showed he downloaded a single Category A video, the most serious kind, of incident footage of a child for which he was charged by Nottingham Crown Court.
Coote pleaded not guilty at his first court appearance in September, but changed his plea to guilty the following month.
His lawyer, Laura Jane Miller stated that Coote had been taking cocaine and was struggling with his mental health at the time of the offence which he felt ashamed of.
Judge Nirmal Shant imposed a nine-month prison sentence which is suspended for two years and has also ordered Coote to engage in 150 hours of unpaid work.
