Preparing for life without a foremost national asset, Mark Clattenburg | Marina Hyde

Funny to think that Mark Clattenburg inking a sponsorship deal while still a serving referee once felt like a harbinger of the endtimes. O Premier League, what hath you wrought? These days, alas, you get an altogether more worrying class of harbinger. Take the starstruck member of Donald Trump’s gopping Floridian private members club, Mar-a-Lago, who spent the weekend filling his social media with insanely revelatory posts about the presidential entourage. “This is Rick … He carries the ‘football’. The nuclear football (also known as the atomic football, the president’s Emergency Satchel, the button, the black box, or just the football) is a briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States to authorise a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centres …”

Ooh, we didn’t know we were born, did we, when Clattenburg refused to follow the precedent set by Pierluigi Collina, and resign his career in officialdom in order to monetise an advertising opportunity. Mark simply unveiled a commercial for a hair loss clinic – “the hardest decision to make is to pick up the phone and make that call” – and sauntered right back into making far easier calls on the pitch. He bestrode the worlds of plugging hair plugs and calling players “mate” like a Colossus. As he once explained, “the players identify with me”. (But do they want to? I suspect players want to identify with referees about as much as ladies want to date a man whose best friend is his mum.)

Even away from the pitch, Mark’s personal brand management continued apace, with a string of incidents that could only be described as “so Mark Clattenburg”. The repossession of a black BMW X5 with the personalised plate bearing the legend Cl9 TTS (Clatts). The vandalisation of a black Porsche Boxster outside his home, about which a girlfriend and former business partner was questioned before being cleared. Yes, with a few in-game exceptions, I must say I have always enjoyed the posturings of refereeing’s Mark Clattenburg – and now more than ever. We live in an age where preposterous characters who aren’t capable of blundering us into nuclear security breaches are surely to be treasured.

So imagine my HORROR to learn that we stand on the brink of losing one of our foremost national assets. Reports suggest another officiating Rubicon is due to be crossed: wantaway ref Mark Clattenburg is considering a big money move to China or MLS. Indeed, he appears to be issuing a come-and-get-me plea.

To an article in the Daily Mail, then, which you’ll already have surmised reads as though it were dictated by Mark Clattenburg’s agent, and after lunch at that. It begins audaciously, with the styling “Fears are growing …” To wit: “Fears are growing among the refereeing hierarchy that top official Mark Clattenburg will quit the Premier League this year.” Other standout phrases include “will not be short of lucrative offers”, and “talk has intensified”. If you’re playing chiseller bingo, you just dabbered off a full house.

But let’s continue, with the assertion “It is said that Clattenburg is becoming increasingly tired of the level of scrutiny which follows high-profile decisions”. Is it indeed said? I certainly remember the last time it was said of Mark – indeed, in one of my favourite ever Clattenburg moves he once took a leaf right out of the Princess Di playbook, and withdrew from public life for a spell. If he is now planning another Garbo-like exile, it feels time to remind Mark that … how to put this? … being able to withstand scrutiny of high-profile decisions is his job.

Still, we can’t ignore the lure of China. Not only would it be the big yuan, but it would provide our hero with the perfect opportunity to complete a body art hat-trick. Last year, Mark had himself tattooed with both the Champions League and European Championship trophies, having refereed both finals. Next? Well, no journey of self-discovery to south-east Asia is complete without a Chinese-lettering tattoo that you were told meant Zen Master Of The Chinese Super League, but actually translates as Silly Billy Foreigner.

But as I say, this isn’t the outcome for which we should be hoping. In these darkening times, we surely need people who add to the gaiety of the nation. Can’t some fighting fund be deployed to keep Mark on our shores, or are we really to sit back as he does one to the MLS, gets an Instagram account and starts using hashtags like #malibusunset and #blessed? It may sound tempting now, but I can assure Mark – and his busy agent – that he’s never going to get the I’m A Celeb booking all the way over there, much less the memoirs deal for an opus provisionally entitled I, Clattenburg.