Referee Mike Dean has asked not to be booked for a Premier League game this weekend after receiving death threats on social media.
He controversially decided to send-off West Ham's Tomas Soucek at the weekend, days after another handing out another hotly debated red card to Southampton's Jan Bednarek.
Both of those decisions have been overturned on appeal, with Hammers' boss David Moyes labelling Soucek's dismissal on Saturday "embarrassing".
Dean has reported online abuse and threats made to both him and his family to police today as well as asking the Premier League not to assign him to a game in the English top-flight this weekend.
He will, however, continue to take charge of Wednesday's FA Cup tie between Brighton and Leicester and could return to Premier League duty later this month.
PGMOL chief Mike Riley has called the abuse aimed at Dean "abhorrent".
"Threats and abuse of this nature are totally unacceptable and we fully support Mike's decision to report these messages his family received to the police.
"Nobody should be victim of abhorrent messages like this. Online abuse is unacceptable in any walk of life and more needs to be done to tackle the problem."
Former Premier League official and Dublin-native Dermot Gallagher says he wouldn't wish what has happened to Dean on anybody.
"I'm not a great one for looking back, but when I was refereeing, I took stick in games or coming out to the car park afterwards. But when you went home that was then end of it," Gallagher said on Sky Sports News.
"Unfortunately, now we have social media, and it goes on and on and on, creating avenues like this which are very distasteful.
"It's not a good place for Mike Dean to be at the moment, I feel for him and his family. I worked with Mike many years ago and bump into him every now and then, he's a very upbeat, happy guy. I wouldn't wish this on anybody, it's terrible."
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