José Mourinho launched a fresh attack on the Football Association last night, saying that he was surprised he had not been forced to wear “an electronic tag” by English football’s governing body.
The Chelsea manager was fined £50,000 this week and threatened with a stadium ban for criticising referees but Mourinho accused the FA of double standards. Describing the fine as “an absolute disgrace”, Mourinho said that he was being punished far more harshly than others and, inevitably, dragged Arsène Wenger into the argument.
The Chelsea manager compared his fine for saying that referees were “afraid” to give decisions for his team to the Arsenal manager escaping any sanction for shoving him in the technical area last season.
He also pointed out that Wenger had not been punished for calling Mike Dean, the referee, “weak” and “naive” and yet he could now be excluded from a stadium.
At a launch of Mourinho, a picture-book reflecting on his career, the Chelsea manager called on the media “to get deep” into the workings of the FA disciplinary department in his latest suggestion that there is a conspiracy against him.
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“You should get deep,” he said. “You should go. You should be honest. You shouldn’t be afraid to write, you won’t be punished. Every word I say is a risk. I am happy I don’t have an electronic tag. I think it’s not far from that.
“I also think that £50,000 in the world where we live today is an absolute disgrace. An absolute disgrace. And I also think that the possibility of getting a stadium ban is also something absolutely astonishing. But more difficult for me to understand is when I compare different people with different behaviours or with similar behaviours, with different words or with similar words.”
Mourinho said that he was trying to understand the difference between “afraid” and “weak and naive”. “The difference is £50,000 and one-match stadium ban,” he said.
The FA is understood to have sent the written reasons for Mourinho’s ban to Chelsea. The club will consider an appeal, depending on the judgment. They were shocked in the escalation of punishment to a potential stadium ban.
“The word ‘afraid’ is a punishment, and a hard punishment,” he said. “But to say the referee was ‘weak and naive’, referring to one of the top referees in this country and in Europe, we can do.
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“Weak and naive, you can use. And in this country, a word [afraid] is more important than aggression. So now we know. We can push people in the technical area, no problem.”
Mourinho’s suspended stadium ban will be immediately invoked should he be found to have committed a further misconduct in the next 12 months, but the FA is unlikely to take any action after this latest criticism.
The Chelsea manager also took the opportunity to dismiss a report of a dressing-room mutiny at Stamford Bridge, with the champions taking eight points from as many Barclays Premier League matches. He cited nine players who have come out in public support of him in recent days.