Former referee Mark Halsey has been berated by Graham Poll for “betraying” his fellow officials — and accused of wearing a Bolton kit with his own squad number to training sessions.

Halsey, who has made a number of controversial allegations in his recent book, claimed some statistics show many top-flight referees are not up to the job.

Poll, a fellow ex-Premier League referee, hit back, however, and said Halsey should be ignored.

Halsey used to train with Bolton until the Professional Game Match Officials banned officials training with teams and Poll revealed that Halsey even used to wear a Bolton strip — contrary to instructions.

Poll, known as “The Thing from Tring” when he was still officiating, told talkSPORT: “The sensible thing would be to ignore him. It is what people did at the referees’ camp for a long time when he used to turn up with his Bolton kit to train rather than the kit that we all had on.

“He had a squad number at Bolton and we were told what to wear to train as a group and he ignored that and was on his own. Maybe he is getting back at people.”

Poll said referees as a whole were “appalled” by Halsey’s actions.

He added: “He is 100 per cent betraying what paid him a living, which he would never have earned as the warehouse manager he was or the taxi driver he was.

“The refereeing fraternity is absolutely appalled at what he is doing. He hasn’t thought it through.”