FA appeal verdict on Mourinho

THE FA have taken the extraordinary step of appealing against an independent committee’s decision to clear Jose Mourinho of misconduct. English football’s governing body lost the case against the Manchester United manager last week but decided to fight on after viewing the report yesterday. A new panel will hear the case again, leaving Mourinho free to be on the touchline for Sunday’s derby. The 55-year-old was alleged to have mouthed obscenities in Portuguese into a television camera following United’s comeback win over Newcastle a month ago, but the commission found the case not proven. The FA hired a lip-reading expert who asserted that Mourinho said: ‘F*** off you sons of b*****s’ as he left the pitch after a 3-2 win. However, Mourinho used his own expert witness, an assistant professor at the University of Lisbon — to argue successfully that the comments had been taken out of context and a more accurate translation would be ‘F*** yeah!’ or ‘Hell yeah!’ The commission accepted the latter point of view after deciding that some of the FA expert’s evidence lacked context and was contradictory because he admitted that Mourinho’s words ‘can occur as a joke’ among Portuguese males. It was ruled that Mourinho did not shout the comments, some of which were ‘inaudible’, into the camera and that his words would have only been picked up by someone with a good knowledge of Portuguese profanities.