BT call up Special One

CHELSEA manager Jose Mourinho, who already has ambassador roles with Hublot, Yahoo, Jaguar and the United Nations World Food Programme, has started talks with BT Sport about representing them as well.

BT see Mourinho as their response to Sky having David Beckham as their £4m-a-year ambassador, although Jose is expected to be cheaper for BT, who are also making overtures to Sir Alex Ferguson ahead of their Champions League coverage that starts in 2015-16.

Mourinho used to be a Sky ambassador, describing their 2009 football coverage as ‘special’.

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NEVILLE is not the only BBC cocommentator who has attracted criticism from inside the Corporation. Danny Murphy’s description of a Chile defender bringing down Spain’s Fernando Torres to preserve the lead as a ‘good foul’ brought immediate disapproval from Jeremy Vine on Twitter. THERE is still no plan for how the £180m Manaus stadium will be used after the World Cup, with no club in the region big enough for its 42,000-capacity arena. An Amazon state judge suggested it be turned into a detention centre to ease prison overcrowding. But security isn’t a Brazilian strongpoint, as the mass Chilean fan break-in at the Maracana suggests.

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may fancifully claim that 46million tuned into beIN Sports’ English language coverage of the England v Italy game. But the only way Qatar presenter Richard Keys and his similarly forgotten sidekick Andy Gray can create even a ripple of interest about themselves is to have a go at your Sports Agenda columnist on their hopeless World Cup Diary video on successive days.