Glasgow and West Feed

Ex-referee Jeff Winter's website briefly reappears after anti-Catholic rant

The blog posts against the Catholic Church and Celtic were removed from the personal website of Jeff Winter.

By Mike Farrell

27 January 2012 11:57 GMT

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Ex-referee Jeff Winter's website briefly reappears after anti-Catholic rant

Jeff Winter: The rant on the former referee's personal blog has been removed. Pic: © SNS Group

Former English Premiership referee Jeff Winter’s personal website briefly resurfaced online after anti-Catholic rants appeared on it.

The 56-year-old’s personal website reappeared on Friday morning, without any of the offensive posts, which included an article asking whether "altar boys" would get "abused in celebration" after Celtic won the latest Old Firm game last month.

The site was suspended by web provider 123-Reg on January 12. A post added to Mr Winter’s homepage on Friday morning stated: "Regular site features and columns will start appearing here again soon…"

However, on Friday afternoon the 123-Reg once again suspended Mr Winter's site hours after it had reappeared.

The web hosting company released a statement in relation to the former referee's website.

It read: "The site was originally disabled swiftly in accordance with our terms and conditions because of a complaint received regarding the content.

"This content was removed and the website was, to our knowledge, no longer containing the reportedly inflammatory material. Because of this, the complaint itself was resolved and the website was then reinstated.

"Unprecedented communications received today allude to 123-Reg being supportive of the material that previously appeared on the website. 123-Reg in no way condones the content attributed to Mr Winter that was brought to our attention on 12 January 2012 . In light of this, the decision was made to again disable the website."

The former Premiership referee, who retired in 2004, denied knowledge of the posts in an interview with the Northern Echo, claiming he had been away touring New Zealand and Australia for 39 days and "had little or no opportunity to phone, email or text as I have been at sea most of the time."

Mr Winter told the newspaper he would "take some legal advice" after he returned to the UK earlier this month.

One of the posts, dated December 30, 2011, described Pope Benedict XVI as "dress wearing, Nazi, kiddy fiddling protector".

Celtic Football Club complained to Strathclyde Police after the articles, which were purported to be written by Mr Winter on his travels, were highlighted.

The force said enquiries into the posts are continuing, while both Northumbria and Cleveland police forces confirmed the Middlesbrough resident had not been in contact with them regarding the posts on his site, or been questioned by officers.

Mr Winter could not be contacted on Friday in relation to his site appearing back online.

After the comments were brought to light, Peter Kearney, director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, said: "Not only is it not banter this goes way beyond comment on football.

"I mean the comments made here, if they prove to be correct, take us into a different realm altogether. And they do constitute the most outrageous religious hatred."

On his official Twitter account Mr Winter describes himself as a supporter of Middlesbrough and Rangers. In November 2010 he was pictured attending Rangers’ 3-1 win over St Mirren in Paisley.

Since retiring from officiating, Mr Winter has worked as a pundit for Sky Sports and Talksport Radio, as well as performing on the after-dinner speaker circuit.

Earlier this month, football pundit Gabriele Marcotti revealed on Twitter he had contacted Mr Winter about the post to establish whether or not the site had been hacked and had received a reply saying the ex-referee’s website manager was looking into it.

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