Former referee Howard Webb has hit back at claims that he was biased towards Manchester United throughout his career.

Allegations that the match official favoured the Red Devils followed him throughout his refereeing days, but he has now insisted there was never any truth to them.

"There's no element of truth in it," the Daily Mail quotes Webb as saying. "It's not something that affected me or played on my mind at all. It wasn't hurtful. Much of it is tongue-in-cheek, of course.

"What does play on my mind is when I've made a mistake, particularly an influential one that has affected the outcome of a game. I'd be dishonest if I said it didn't bother me.

"One newspaper listed the five games I'd want to forget over the course of my career. Well, there's more than five. But against the backdrop of more than 500 professional games - I can think of many top professional footballers who have made plenty of mistakes but are still top professional footballers."

Webb retired from refereeing last week to take up the role of technical director for the Professional Game Match Officials Limited.