The Football Association have released their written reasons for issuing Jose Mourinho with a £40,000 fine and a one match stadium ban. Mourinho will not be allowed into The Britannia Stadium for this evening’s match between Chelsea and Stoke City after choosing not to appeal against the ban, which was issued for the “persistent and/or aggressive nature of the reported behaviour” of the Blues’ manager during the half-time interval of his side’s 2-1 loss to West Ham United last month.
The report claims that the Portuguese manager went into the referee’s room at half-time upon the invitation of the referee, something manager’s are usually forbidden from doing, and then refused to leave several times when Jonathan Moss asked him too. Moss wrote his report of the incident after the match and said, “I asked him to leave the dressing room area. He refused. I asked him again. After he refused I asked Mr Sutton [West Ham’s security manager] to escort him from the room. At this point Mr Mourinho became very aggressive and animated. He shouted that you f*cking referees are weak… Wenger is right about you… you are f*cking weak”.
The reference to Wenger comes after the Arsenal manager was not punished after he called Mike Dean ‘weak’ and ‘naive’ after his side lost to Chelsea in September. That annoyed 52 year old Mourinho who was fined £50,000 and given a one match suspended stadium ban after saying that referees were ‘afraid’ to give his side penalties in the aftermath of Chelsea’s 3-1 home loss to Southampton.
Mourinho made clear his disgust at the fact that he was punished and Wenger was not when he said, “This stadium ban is connected to words, to complaints. I can imagine that in the future we are going to have lots of managers with stadium bans, because the stadium bans should be related to something really serious”.
The FA report into the incident at West Ham said that the self-proclaimed ‘Special One, “showed a total lack of respect for the match officials and the sanctuary of their changing room”. They also explained why they felt that a touchline ban alone wouldn’t have sufficed after this incident, saying, “To only order a touchline ban would have the potential of enabling Mr Mourinho to commit a similar offence” as he would still have has access to the dressing room area.