The former referee officiated in the Premier League while Sunderland were in the top-flight...

Mark Clattenburg has revealed an interesting career admission while Sunderland were competing in the Premier League to Jamie Carragher and Paul Scholes.

The former referee and Newcastle United fan joined the former England duo on this week’s edition of The Overlap Fan Debate show with Sky Sports. County Durham-born Clattenburg is widely regarded as one of the most prominent officials in recent times in the United Kingdom and Europe.

The referee’s performances in the Premier League from 2006 led him to officiate at some of the biggest international tournaments, including the 2012 European Championship final between Spain and Italy and the 2016 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.

After retiring from English refereeing in 2017, Clattenburg has continued to be active in the football world, taking up roles with Saudi Arabia's football association, and was also controversially employed as an analyst by Nottingham Forest in the Premier League. He has since become a prominent pundit and commentator on officiating and also appears on the BBC show Gladiators.

In April 2024, during a Premier League match between Everton and Nottingham Forest, VAR official Stuart Attwell became the centre of controversy. Nottingham Forest felt aggrieved after three of their penalty appeals were dismissed during their 2-0 defeat.

Post-match, the club's official social media account posted: "Three extremely poor decisions - three penalties not given - which we simply cannot accept. We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game, but they didn't change him." The statement implied that Attwell's alleged affiliation with Luton Town - a club competing with Forest for league survival - affected his impartiality during the match.

The Football Association deemed Forest's comments as bringing the game into disrepute, leading to a £750,000 fine and a warning regarding future conduct. Forest appealed the fine, labelling it as disproportionate, but their appeal was rejected in March 2025. Subsequently, they deleted the contentious post.

Clattenburg was involved and employed by Nottingham Forest at the time and had an influence on proceedings. Speaking about the event to The Overlap, the former referee referenced both Sunderland and Newcastle in trying to explain how he thought the situation could have been handled better.

“When I was a referee, I didn't want to be involved if Newcastle and Sunderland, for example, as a Newcastle fan, I couldn't referee Sunderland. But also I didn't want to referee teams around if, for example, Sunderland were always in the relegation fight, so I didn't want to be involved in clubs around them,” Clattenburg said.

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“And also I didn't want to be in, if Newcastle were, say, going for the Champions League spot, I didn't want to do teams around that because I didn't want to be accused of anything. And what happened was a few days before we were brought, the club was brought to the attention that Stuart Atwell was a Luton Town fan. And that set up a lot of bad feelings because they'd had such a lot of bad refereeing decisions. It was so crucial in the season.”

Carragher responded: “Bad feelings from who? You? You? Or the old referee? Because you're a referee.”

Clattenburg added: “Yeah, so it was brought through the club, through journalists that were going bring it up in Nuno's press conference, that Stuart Atwell was a Luton Town fan. Luton, Everton and Nottingham Forest were in a very delicate situation.

“I think there was only a few points between. And they felt the club felt it would have been better that Stuart wasn't a VAR. When I spoke with Howard Webb, who was the head of refereeing in England, he wasn't aware that Stuart Atwell was a Luton Town fan, which surprised me a bit because we all had to play.”

Scholes added: “I was just going to say, surely you have to declare who you support?”

“We had to declare,” Clattenburg added. “I declared that I was a Newcastle fan. I couldn't referee Newcastle or Sunderland. So I was surprised that, probably not surprised because Howard was new to the job. He probably wasn't up to speed with who he supported. But I felt, and I said this to Howard, I've appointed referees in Greece. I know the politics and how things work.

“It would have been better before the appointments were released that Stuart Atwell wasn't given the game. I'm not saying he's not impartial or he's fair. Of course, he's fair. English referees are the fairest across the world. But it put Stuart in a very difficult situation. If anything happens, people will always bring back the Watford ghost goal, which Watford and Luton are enemies as well.

“All of this comes out with Stuart but could have been avoided. But I understood Howard's position. Once you've made the appointments, it's difficult to change because it sets up another argument of why you're changing the referee. Nottingham Forest made a complaint. You shouldn't be doing this. So I understood it all. All I said to Howard was, this is going to be a difficult situation because he's in a no-win situation. If anything happens in the match, Stuart's destroyed.”

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