Me? I’m the Persecuted One
MOURINHO BLASTS FA FOR FINE & MATCH BAN
I think that a £50,000 fine in the world where we live today is a disgrace... and the possibility of a stadium ban is absolutely astonishing Thanks to the FA there is something that we know now... we can push people in the technical area
THEY had thrown the book at Jose Mourinho – and the Chelsea manager used the launch of his new book to hurl another barrage of insults at the FA and Arsene Wenger.
Mourinho came out fighting last night, dismissing claims that he is facing a dressing-room mutiny after a dismal start to the season – and hammering the FA’s “disgraceful” and “astonishing” decision to fine him £ 50,000 and hand him a suspended one-match ban.
The Special One has not been cowed by the threat that he will be barred from a match if he brings the game into disrepute again within the next year.
The FA are unlikely to invoke that suspension because of last night’s verbal tirade – but they will not be impressed that he again suggested double standards exist when the FA deal with himself and others, chiefly his hated rival Wenger.
The Arsenal boss escaped punishment for branding ref Mike Dean “weak and naive” after he had two men sent off in their 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge last month.
And Mourinho also threw in a mention of last season’s flashpoint when Wenger (below) pushed him in the Stamford Bridge technical area and dodged any sanction.
The Chelsea chief said: “It’s difficult for me to understand when I compare different people with similar behaviours, with different words or with similar words.
“But the word ‘ afraid’ is a punishment, and a hard punishment. But to say the referee was ‘weak and naive naive’, referring to one of the to top referees in this country a and in Europe, we can do. There is something that, now, we know. We can p push people in the te technical area. “The only good thing of this last decision by the FA is that every manager in this country can write in a little book and, when he goes to the press conference, he knows that ‘afraid’ costs £50,000. ‘ Weak and naive’, you can use. More important is a word than aggression. So now we know. That’s the only reason I can still walk in London without an electronic tag.”
As hundreds of Chelsea fans queued for his signature outside the Waterstones store in London’s Piccadilly, a local newspaper claimed Mourinho was facing a dressing-room mutiny.
Mourinho retorted that several senior players publicly backed him during the international break – and joked if there was an uprising, it must involve fringe players Baba Rahman and Papy Djilobodji.
He said: “Asmir Begovic said we had the best manager in the world. Kurt Zouma the same. John Terry, ‘ We have the manager who can help us to revive this situation’. Diego Costa, ‘If you ask every player in the world, they will all answer the same, that they’d like to work with three managers and one is this one’.
“Cesc Fabregas, the same. Ramires, the same. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, the same. Gary Cahill, the same. Eden Hazard, very similar. So the mutiny must be Baba. Who else? Papy?”